NCR’s second international airport to come up at Jewar

New Delhi, June 24 (IANS) The central government has given its "in-principle approval" for the construction of a greenfield airport at Jewar, located in Gautam Budh Nagar district, adjoining the national capital city of New Delhi.

The new facility, expected to be spread across 3,000 hectares of land, will be the second international airport to serve the catchment areas of the National Capital Region (NCR).

The new aviation facility at Jewar -- Noida International Airport -- is expected to ease the infrastructure pressure on the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) located here.

It is expected that IGIA's passenger handling capacity will reach up to 91 MPPA (million passengers per annum) by 2020 and 109 MPPA by 2024 from the current level of 62 million.

The Noida International Airport in Uttar Pradesh will be located 72 km from IGIA and 65 km from Hindon Air Force station in Ghaziabad.

According to Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, the approval or site clearance has been given for the first phase of the airport which is envisaged to be completed in five years.

"We have granted in-principle approval for a greenfield airport at Jewar (Greater Noida) to cater to the growing flying requirements of NCR," Raju said at a press briefing held at the Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan here which is the headquarters of the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

"Noida International Airport will cater to 30-50 million passengers per year over the next 10-15 years."

The first phase of the project would require around 1,000 hectares of land, the minister said.

Elaborating on the project, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said the first phase of the new airport project is expected to cost Rs 10,000 crore.

Sinha pointed out at the press briefing that one runway and a terminal building will be developed during the first phase.

The state government will implement the project through the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA).

The YEIDA is expected to complete land acquisition and conduct a techno-economic feasibility study for the project within one year.

In April, Sinha had said that the new state government in Uttar Pradesh has asked for a fresh technical evaluation for setting up a green field airport at Jewar.

A technical evaluation of the proposed site at Jewar was conducted earlier but due to the time lapse there was a need to conduct a fresh study, Sinha had said.

The announcement comes a day after the Steering Committee on Greenfield Airports, headed by Civil Aviation Secretary R.N. Choubey accorded in-principle approval for the project based on a proposal submitted by the recently elected state government of Uttar Pradesh.

In 2001, the then UP chief minister Rajnath Singh proposed the idea of an airport located in Greater Noida. Later, governments including those of Mayawati, proposed that the project be set up in Jewar, near Greater Noida.

The last UP government scrapped the project, citing a clause that bars development of a second airport within a 150-km radius of an existing one. The IGIA is being developed and managed by a consortium led by GMR.

However, Raju said that the project which is expected to be developed on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model, will provide the GMR-led consortium with the "First Right of Refusal" at the time of the bidding.

(This story has not been edited by Social News XYZ staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)