UP airports projects remained grounded under Akhilesh rule

Virendra Singh Rawat

In his public meetings and press interactions, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav always loves to talk about the mega road infrastructure projects taking wings under his almost five years rule.

These projects chiefly include Agra-Lucknow Expressway, which is already operational and the proposed Lucknow-Ballia Expressway, apart from the ongoing projects to link all the 75 districts in UP with four-lane highways to improve connectivity and boost tourism and economy.

However, there have been several international airports projects that have remained grounded for the last several years, away from the public glare.

These airports had been proposed under the successive rules of Mayawati and Akhilesh to spur tourism and provide direct air links between major tourist spots. The prominent among these proposed airports projects include Kushinagar and Jewar, which have witnessed no action despite initial groundwork.

The state had proposed to develop international aviation hubs at Kushinagar, Jewar near Greater Noida (Gautam Budh Nagar district) and Agra, yet nothing fructified, which indicates the government apathy to pursue these projects.

Kushinagar airport

Kushingar international airport was initially estimated at Rs 354 crore under public private partnership (PPP) mode. In January 2014, the Akhilesh cabinet cleared the project under Design Build Finance Operate Transfer (DBFOT) basis.

The bidders, who had previously qualified technical bid stage in March 2013, included GMR, Essel, Gammon India etc. The state had even acquired 550 acres of land. The proposed airport with 3,200 metre runway was projected to cater to 2,50,000 tourists annually.

It was touted as India’s first airport wherein the Centre had given in-principle approval for viability gap funding (VGF) of 20 per cent. An additional 20 per cent grant had been committed from the state. Thus, the total permissible VGF grant of 40 percent came to about Rs 170 crore.

Kushinagar has an existing airstrip spanning 97 acres for small aircraft. It is estimated that 3,00,000 international tourists visit Kushinagar every year for the Buddhist sites.

However, following lack of interest among private developers, the project still hangs in balance, although UP has officially not shelved it yet.

Jewar airport

In 2001, Jewar airport was proposed as an aviation hub to decongest New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. It was approved by AAI in 2003 during Mayawati’s regime.

She had vigorously pushed for it, although it came within the 150 km radius of another international airport in the national capital, while the existing rules prohibited another airport within such radius unless approved exclusively.

The project was estimated to cost Rs 3,500 crore spanning 3,700 acres and handle 4 million passengers annually. The techno-feasibility study had also been conducted and forwarded to the Centre for further action.

Mayawati had even planned to get the airport operational before 2010 Commonwealth Games, but it failed to take off owing to pending central clearances.

Agra airport

Soon after coming to power in March 2012, the Akhilesh government had virtually scrapped Jewar international airport project and proposed another airport in Agra.

The state had even identified land near Etmadpur, about 16 km from Agra City for the purpose. However, the defense ministry raised objections over this site.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2015, the Akhilesh government expressed willingness to revive the Jewar airport project, while at the same time pitching for the Agra aiport.

The UP government had even proposed an alternative site in Agra apart from proposing to redevelop Saifai airstrip (Etawah district) into an international airport.

Besides, UP had engaged AAI as consultant for conducting the pre-feasibility of the proposed airport sites at Agra and Saifai.

Former union civil aviation minister Ajit Singh during the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime had urged the Akhilesh government to hand over Meerut and Agra airport to AAI to unlock tourism potential in the region.

UP airports/airstrips

Currently, there are over two dozen airports and airstrips in the state owned either by AAI or UP, located in Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Bareilly, Meerut, Saifai (Etawah), Sultanpur, Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Farrukhabad, Faizabad, Kushinagar, Sonbhadra, Moradabad, Azamgarh etc.

Besides, the UP civil aviation department owns 18 airstrips of which the Jhansi airstrip is controlled by the Indian Army.