NOIDA: The international airport site in Greater Noida has an advantage over the two other places under consideration in Uttar Pradesh as it already has key no-objection certificates (NoC) needed for the construction to start, senior government officials said on Sunday.
The state government’s official pitch for Jewar as one of the possible sites, along with Kushinagar and Agra, is a step in the right direction, the officials said, adding all necessary approvals for the Jewar site are in place.
“Once both the Centre and state government reach a consensus on developing an airport in Jewar, it will be a matter of days before construction starts, because most of approvals have been taken,” said Y K Bahl, former additional CEO of the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority.
Bahl, who was closely associated with the Jewar airport project, for which land has already been acquired, said the BSP regime had obtained the clearances. “There is a dearth of political will in the Jewar case. But over the past few months, an environment has been created for the airport project in Jewat to take off. Jewar is in Gautam Budh Nagar and its MP is the junior civil aviation minister,” he said.
The Gautam Budh Nagar MP, Mahesh Sharma, revived the Jewar project when he said before taking charge as minister that it was among his priorities.
“We had taken approvals from the ministry of civil aviation, home ministry, the steering committee for all three phases – site clearance, in-principle approval and grant of licence – and the finance, defence and environment ministries,” said another official who did not want to be named. “Clearances were also granted by the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Bureau of Civil Aviation Security of India (BCAS) and the Airports Authority of India for the Jewar project. But the UPA government transferred the matter to a group of ministers and the project was put on hold,” the official added.
A UP government official said Jewar also has a strategic advantage. “The SP government has also planned to develop an international airport near Agra. But this site (Jewar) is logical for business and national security,” the official said.
Saying that it would have no conflict with IGI airport in Delhi, the official said the idea behind having a second airport in NCR was to decongest air traffic in Delhi. Existing rules don’t allow a second airport within a 150 km radius of an existing one, unless the latter is operating to capacity and is unable to meet the city’s demand. That is why Navi Mumbai, a suburb of Mumbai, is getting an airport. Sources said the Centre has enough legal backing to opt for a second airport.
