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Greater Noida Airport Faces Further DelayBy parul118, Section News
The 150-km clause in the agreement between civil aviation ministry and the GMR-led consortium that bars any airport to come up within 150 kilometre of Delhi airport is turning out to be quite a headache for the government. The consortium is incharge of Delhi airport modernisation.
The law ministry, which has been examining the proposal of Greenfield Taj International Aviation Hub (TIAH) in Jewar near Greater Noida ever since a GoM was constituted in February, has now decided to refer the issue to the attorney general of India. The move may cause further delays for the Rs 5,000 crore project. The GoM, with the law ministry, was to look into implicit and explicit agreements signed with the operators of the Delhi's IGI airport, located just 70 km away from IGI and assess if the proposed airport would violate contractual obligations. Sources in the civil aviation ministry said the Jewar project-first conceptualised in 2001 by the then Mayawati government-is now likely to take even longer. "The proposal for the airport has been passed on to the attorney general for a view by the law ministry. It is unlikely that it would be approved now, given the current political situation," sources said. "The law ministry has been surveying the issue for more than four months now," he added. While the civil aviation ministry had forwarded a favorable assessment of the Jewar project to the law ministry well over six months ago, the latter is yet to come back with a view. "We have reminded the law ministry to submit their paper, but there does not seem to be a sense of urgency now," the source said. Click on "Full Story" for more...
In its paper, the aviation ministry said that the Greater Noida airport would be necessary from the viewpoint of the passenger. According to Airports Authority of Indian estimates, the estimated traffic at the IGI airport will be 108 million per year by 2015-16, leading to severe congestion and a need for more capacity. The aviation ministry held that TIAH could solve this problem.
The proposed Greater Noida airport was expected to handle around 3.9 million passengers annually by 2011-12, or roughly one-fifth of the current traffic at the New Delhi airport, according to estimates by the state government. It would also seek to derive a significant share of revenue through shopping malls, hotels, a cargo hub, an aviation academy and residential complexes as part of the project. "The important thing to be considered is that there should be a level playing field between the proposed Noida and existing Delhi airport. For instance, in Delhi airport there is scope to commercial utilize only five per cent of the land. If around 10-20 per cent of land is available for commercial exploitation at Greater Noida, it is foreseeable that it may offer facilities at lesser cost and gain an upper hand," a senior civil aviation official said. Source: Financial Express, August 21, 2008
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