Hyderabad: A waterdrome is described as a water body that has certain minimum requirements for landing an aircraft, according to the official. Seaplanes can land on water bodies, while amphibian planes can operate on land as well as on water bodies.

A recent announcement by the Ministry of Civil Aviation was that the construction of a waterdrome at Nagarjunasagar Dam will be completed by 2023. “We are clueless about any waterdrome project,” an Irrigation Department official told Telangana Today.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, replying to a question on airports under the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) in Lok Sabha on February 4, said the Ministry was constructing 10 waterdromes, three each at Andaman and Nicobar, two each in Assam and Lakshadweep, and one each at Nagarjunasagar in Telangana, Prakasam Barrage in Andhra Pradesh and Shatrunjay dam in Gujarat.

The Minister mentioned the sanctioned cost and timeline for the project. About the project at Nagarjunasagar, it said the waterdrome, where seaplanes and amphibious aircraft can land and take off, would be completed by 2023.

State Irrigation Department officials, said they were unaware of any such project coming up near the vicinity of the dam, the largest masonry dam that was commissioned in 1967.

“For the construction of a waterdrome, water and a proper bund are basic requirements. No one from the Ministry, however, consulted Irrigation Department officials here for the waterdrome at Nagarjunasagar. We have so far not received any information about the project from the Ministry,” an official said.

Sources said the Ministry had spotted project sites for construction of the 10 waterdromes under UDAN, a regional airport development scheme of the Central government, after completing a detailed study on the feasibility of such projects at these sites.

When contacted, Irrigation Department Engineer-in-Chief (General) Ch Muralidhar also said he did not know about the waterdrome project on Nagarjunasagar.