Ludhiana, Dec. 13 -- During Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, Rajinder Gupta pressed for urgent expansion of international flight connectivity from Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh International Airport, Mohali. He said that despite being one of North India's most modern airports-handling nearly 10,000 passengers daily and equipped to manage 4.5 million annually-its international operations remain minimal, with only two routes to Dubai and Abu Dhabi and just nine weekly international movements.

Gupta stressed that the airport serves a catchment area of over 60 million people across Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh, including a large NRI population with high travel demand to destinations such as the UK, US, Canada, Singapore, Qatar...