Rs91,000 cr to be spent on airport infrastructure development in next 5 years: minister

Under the Greenfield Airports Policy-2008, the government has so far accorded 'in-principle' approval for setting up 21 greenfield airports across the country -  Mopa in Goa; Navi Mumbai, Shirdi and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra; Kalaburagi, Bijapur, Hassan and Shimoga 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 Oravakal in Andhra Pradesh; Durgapur in West Bengal; Pakyong in Sikkim; Kannur in Kerala and Hollongi (Itanagar) in Arunachal Pradesh. Out of these, eight airports,  namely, Durgapur, Shirdi, Sindhudurg, Pakyong, Kannur, Kalaburagi, Oravakal and Kushinagar have been operationalised.

In Bihar, AAI had projected a land requirement of 108 acre for development of a Civil Enclave at Bihta Airport. The land (108 acre) has already been handed over by the state government to AAI. However, AAI has projected an additional land requirement of 191.5 acre for runway extension and installation of approach light and 8 acre for city side development to accommodate wide bodied aircraft for international operations at the airport. The additional land at Bihta airport is yet to be handed over to AAI by the state government. In case of non availability of land, the state government needs to identify an alternate site for construction of a greenfield airport meeting the requirements for operation of international flights.

Minister of civil aviation, Jyotiraditya M Scindia, ave this information in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.