The assurance came during a meeting with the Maharashtra government on Wednesday. Jet Airways will seek the necessary clearances mainly from the Centre to make this happen. The state government was represented by Maharashtra's minister for public health Digvijay Khanvilkar from Kolhapur, civil aviation secretary Vinay Bansal, Kolhapur district collector Arvind Singh. Jet Airways was represented by its vice chairman Anita Goyal and its general manager (sales administration) YR Chaphekar at Wednesday's meeting.

Khanvilkar told The Financial Express that the Mumbai-Kolhapur flight would be a daily service and would probably land in Mumbai at around 10 am. "Such a service is necessary as the Kolhapur district houses at least nine export oriented units (EoUs) with annual sales of Rs 9,000 crore. In addition to this, there are nearly 12 spinning mills and various co-operative units," he added.

Khanvilkar said that a coordination committee headed by the minister for social welfare Jayavant Awale has been set up to expedite the project.He said that Jet Airways has also been asked to extend its Mumbai-Kolhapur service upto Belgaum. The company has also been asked to look into the possibility of launching its service between Mumbai and Nagpur and between Mumbai and Aurangabad. Jet Airways has also been asked to start a Munmbai-Tirupati-Kolhapur-Mumbai service.

As far as the Kolhapur airstrip is concerned, it was prepared in 1987 and was later handed over the state-run Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) for maintenance in 1997. The present airport occupies an area of 73.35 hectares and its maintenance cost is just over Rs 10 lakh annually.

MIDC has earmarked a sum of Rs 3 crore in its annual budget for 2000-01 to meet costs for the creation of night landing facilities, the construction of roads within the complex, parking facilities, ambulance and others. MIDC may extend the runway by 376 m, taking its total length to 1,746 m which will make it possible for a 62-seater to land at Kolhapur.