Charbatia Air Base is located approximately 10 km north of Cuttack

Cuttack

Cuttack is the former capital of the state of Orissa, India. It is the headquarters of Cuttack district and is located about 20 km to the north east of Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa. The name of the city is an anglicised form of Kataka that literally means The Fort, a reference to the...

, Orissa

Orissa

Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...

 in eastern India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. It is an aerial reconnaissance

Aerial reconnaissance

Aerial reconnaissance is reconnaissance that is conducted using unmanned aerial vehicles or reconnaissance aircraft. Their roles are to collect imagery intelligence, signals intelligence and measurement and signature intelligence...

 post of the Aviation Research Centre

Aviation Research Centre

The Aviation Research Centre is a part of the Research and Analysis Wing of the Cabinet Secretariat, India. The first head of the ARC was R. N. Kao, the legendary founding chief of R&AW...

 (ARC).

The base was built with the assistance of the Central Intelligence Agency

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 in the early 1960s and was used for aerial surveillance and intelligence gathering of China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

's strategic forces.

The air base is spread over 2000 acres (8.1 km²). In 2011, the Chief Minister of Orissa, Naveen Patnaik

Naveen Patnaik

Naveen Patnaik is an Indian politician and the current Chief Minister of Orissa, India and the chief of Biju Janata Dal, a regional political party in Orissa.-Personal life:...

 announced that the air base will be converted into a full-fledged Indian Air Force

Indian Air Force

The Indian Air Force is the air arm of the Indian armed forces. Its primary responsibility is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during a conflict...

station.