Noida International Airport likely to be operational within six years, will be built to handle 30-50 million passengers per year

A second airport in the National Capital Region (NCR) will become a reality in the next five years as the Centre gave its nod to develop a “world class” international airport in Greater Noida’s Jewar region in UttarPradesh.

The clearance for the long-pending airport project was given by the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s Steering Committee, which met on Friday. The panel gave its nod after taking inputs from the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the Defence Ministry, the Finance Ministry and the NITI Aayog.

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The Noida International Airport will be built to handle 30-50 million passengers per year over the next decade, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said.

The airport is aimed at easing the burden on Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), which is expected to reach its peak capacity of handling 109 million passengers in the next seven years.

The new airport for Delhi-NCR will be at par with the Mumbai airport, which handles around 45 million passengers annually at present. The airport will be built in two phases, with the first phase expected to be operational “in five-six years,” Civil Aviation Secretary R. N. Choubey said.

The first phase of the new airport will see flight operations from one runway and one terminal with a potential to handle around 20-25 million passengers.

Flight Path 2002: The Mayawati government proposes setting up of a greenfield airport at Jewar

2004-2009: The Union Cabinet, under the then UPA government, refers the proposal to a Group of Ministers. The proposal is put on the back burner

2012: The Akhilesh Yadav government scraps the plan and proposes a new airport site between Agra and Mathura

2016: The UP government revives the plan and sends a formal proposal for site clearance to the proposed ‘Noida International Airport’ at Jewar

2017: The Yogi Adityanath government asks for fresh technical evaluation report on Jewar airport

“The Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority [the nodal agency for the new airport] has notified an area of 3,000 hectares. The first phase will be developed on 1,000 hectares. We expect an investment of ₹ 15,000-₹ 20,000 crore investment,” Mr. Raju said.

The airport will be built on a public-private partnership model with the GMR-led Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), which currently operates IGIA, getting the Right of First Refusal (RoFR) at the time of bidding for the Noida International Airport, the Minister added.

According to the Operation Management and Development Agreement (OMDA) that GMR signed with its IGIA partner, AAI, the former will have the RoFR in case an airport is built within 150 km of the existing one. In the case of the Navi Mumbai airport, the GVK-led Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), which won the bid to run the airport, also had a RoFR due to an existing airport at Mumbai.

Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said the new airport at Jewar will be “like an aerotropoliswith an airport at the centre and a whole host of economic activities clustered around it”.

“It will become a hub for the pharmaceutical industry, the education sector, tourism, and also for electronic manufacturing. Samsung and others are already building their manufacturing facility very close to this area. This airport will provide a massive boost to economic activity to the NCR and in western UP,” Mr.Sinha added.

He said the new airport will also provide seamless domestic and international connectivity to western U.P. with Noida, Agra, Mathura, Meerut, Vrindavan, Moradabad and Bulandshahr likely to serve as the catchment area for the airport.

In the meeting, the U.P. government assured that it will provide multi-modal transport connectivity to the new airport by extending metro rail connectivity from Greater Noida to Jewar, Mr. Choubey said.

After the Centre’s nod, the onus will be on the U.P. government to prepare a techno-economic feasibility report for the project within a year, and acquire land for it.

“During the meeting, representatives of the U.P. government have confirmed to us that farmers are quite willing to provide land for airport development on a negotiated settlement basis, so there may not be any need for forcible land acquisition,” Mr. Choubey said.

He said that the land parcel identified by the U.P. government is mainly agricultural land, so rehabilitation will not be a major issue since it is not inhabited land.