Hyderabad: In a desperate move to shut down the Visakhapatnam International Airport by 2022 and make the Bhogapuram airport project viable, the Andhra Pradesh government is ready to compensate Airports Authority of India (AAI). But AAI officials say they see no reason to shut shop given that the airport’s passenger numbers have been rising for the past few years.

Although AAI had not responded to the compensation proposal, the Andhra Pradesh Airports Development Corporation Limited (APADCL) is pegging the compensation to around Rs 40 crore. “AAI has to share details of the capital expenditure incurred on expanding facilities at all airport with the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA). The AERA website states that AAI spent just over Rs 30 crore on the Visakhapatnam Airport since 2014-15,” says Virender Singh, managing director and CEO of APADCL.

APADCL officials are jittery as they have already spent Rs 800 crore of the Rs 24,020 crore meant for the Bhogapuram project. A better part of the funds have been invested on land acquisition.

“Rs 800 crore is no joke,” said a senior APADCL official on condition of anonymity. “We made the investment after getting a written assurance from AAI about shutting down Visakhapatnam airport for 30 years from day one of Bhogapuram airport becoming functional. We would wait for a while after the new government is formed. If the ministry of civil aviation or AAI don’t change their mind, we would move the Supreme Court. At any cost, we want to meet the 2022 deadline for the project.”

“AAI has suddenly taken a U-turn from their earlier decision. We have asked them not to invest in Visakhapatnam any further and to send us details of cost incurred till now so that we can compensate them,” Singh told TOI.

AAI officials claimed that they are not ready to accept the APADCL proposal. “Why should we (shut the airport)? Both the number of flights and number of passengers at Vizag are increasing every year. Instead of shutting it down we should augment facilitates,” a senior AAI official stated.

The greenfield Bhogapuram project is coming up on an area of 2,703 acres. It is located around 40 km from Visakhapatnam and around 30 km from Vizianagaram.

According to aviation experts, it would be difficult to make the Bhogapuram airport project viable if the Visakhapatnam airport continues functioning. “How do you expect passengers travelling 40 to 45 kms from Visakhapatnam to catch a flight if there’s an airport within the city limits? Most important, Visakhapatnam airport is controlled by AAI which is under the civil aviation ministry. So, if we had to choose between the two airports, we would prefer Visakhapatnam over Bhogapuram,” said a senior airline official.

