By Aritra Banerjee
The Government of India has formulated a Greenfield Airports Policy, 2008, providing guidelines, procedures, and conditions for establishing new Greenfield Airports; Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya M. Scindia revealed in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.
“Under the Greenfield Airports Policy, the Indian government has so far accorded ‘in-principle’ approval for setting up of 21 Greenfield Airports across the country, namely Mopa in Goa, Navi Mumbai, Shirdi and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra, Kalaburagi, Bijapur, Hassan and Shimoga in Karnataka, Datia (Gwalior) in Madhya Pradesh, Kushinagar and Noida (Jewar) in Uttar Pradesh, Dholera and Hirasar in Gujarat, Karaikal in Puducherry, Dagadarthi, Bhogapuram and Oravakal in Andhra Pradesh, Durgapur in West Bengal, Pakyong in Sikkim, Kannur in Kerala and Hollongi (Itanagar) in Arunachal Pradesh,” highlighted a civil aviation ministry press release issued on this development.
The airports accorded Mopa, Navi Mumbai, Shirdi, Noida (Jewar), Dholera, Hirasar, Bhogapuram, Kannur and Kushinagar are international airports, and the remaining are domestic airports. Out of these, eight airports, namely Durgapur, Shirdi, Sindhudurg, Pakyong, Kannur, Kalaburagi, Oravakal and Kushinagar, have been operationalised, the press release elaborated.
The Central Government granted ‘in-principle approval to the Government of Uttar Pradesh (GoUP) on 8/5/18 for setting up a new greenfield international airport at Jewar, Noida. GoUP appointed Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) as the implementing agency for the project under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, MoCA revealed.
GoUP has awarded the project to M/s Zurich International AG to develop the airport. GoUP has informed that acquiring 1334 hectares of land for Phase-I of the project has been completed, and possession of land has been obtained, the press note added.
As per the Master Plan submitted by YIAPL, the forecast for initial year traffic is 4 Million Passengers Per Annum (MPPA) for the airport against the initial capacity of 12 MPPA for Phase I. The estimated project cost for Phase I is Rs. 8914 crores, including the land acquisition cost. As per the Concession Agreement, the scheduled completion date of the airport is 29 September 2024, the civil aviation ministry concluded in its statement to the media.