R S Gahlot has just taken over as director of the airport, which now is one of the 12 modern airports in the country with latest equipment and new buildings.

The airport is being developed as a cargo centre. The Vidarbha industries association and other trade organisations have been advocating establishment of a cargo hub here so that cargo could be sent anywhere in the country in just one transhipment.

The concept, however, was tried more than four decades ago when Rafi Ahmed Kidwai was Union communications minister. He had also introduced the night airmail service.

Small planes were flying from the four metropolitan centres to Nagpur and back and mailbags were exchanged here. Passengers could also use the service and were charged lower fares than in normal flights. ``With courier services proliferating, theidea can be revived and Nagpur, being in the heart of the country, can be the centre for exchange of courier articles,'' an airport official said.

``In fact, two of the largest courier companies in India were planning to have their own aircraft and use Nagpur as the base because it is equidistant from all metro centres'', the official said. But for some reason, the plan has been shelved. With the appointment of a director, there would be better coordination between aerodrome officials, dealing with air traffic control and communications division, looking after maintenance of ground facilities.

The two divisions were functioning independently with duplication of several jobs, which can now be avoided with a unified command, according to Gahlot, who had a stint here in the 70's and was with the civil aviation training college of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) at Allahabad before being posted here.

The airport has now been equipped with modern sophisticated navigational aids like DVOR, DME andinstrument landing system (ILS). The present air route surveillance radar (ARSR) is being replaced with a new surveillance radar.