The Ministry of Civil Aviation has been given ‘in-principle’ approval to set up 21 greenfield airports across the country. The Minister of State for Civil Aviation Gen. VK Singh informed the parliament on the development in a Rajya Sabha session on December 13. Of the 21 airports that received a green chit, eight have been operationalised.
Further, the Centre also presented that under the Udey Desh ka Aam Naagarik (UDAN) scheme, 154 Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) airports, including 14 water aerodromes and 36 helipads, have been considered for development and the upgradation of those existing.
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Replying to MP Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Singh said that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has taken up the development work of new airports and expansion and upgradation of the existing airports at the cost of around Rs 25,000 crore in the next four-five years. Under the development plans, existing terminals will be expanded and modified, new terminals will be developed, existing runways will be expanded and improved, augmentation and strengthening of Airport Navigation Services (ANS) control towers and technical blocks will also be carried.
The Minister of State further informed the upper house that major expansion plans worth Rs 30,000 crore are being undertaken by the three Public-Private Partnership (PPP) airports at Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru by 2025.
According to the Greenfield Airport Policy, 2008, which holds guidelines for setting up of greenfield airports in the country, an airport developer (including the state governments) is required to table a proposal to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Next, there is a two-level process for the approval of the greenfield projects. The first is site clearance and the second is ‘in-principal’ approval.
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The Minister continued, “MoCA 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 Shivamogga 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 Oravackal in Andhra Pradesh, Durgapur in West Bengal, Pakyong in Sikkim, Kannur in Kerala and Hollongi (Itanagar) in Arunachal Pradesh.”