Jewar Airport


Jewar International Airport or Noida Airport is a proposed airport to be constructed in Jewar in Gautam Budh Nagar, a district of Uttar Pradesh. The Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority will be the implementing agency on behalf of the Government of Uttar Pradesh. The airport is to be developed through a Public Private Partnership model. The proposed plan is to build a two runway airport by 2022-23 and at a future date, to expand it into a 7200-acre 6-runway airport. According to the proposed plan, the airport will handle 5 million passengers per annum initially and up to 60 MPA after its expansion over a period of 30 years.
The project site is located from Indira Gandhi International Airport, the airport that currently serves the needs of the entire National Capital Region and is quickly reaching its peak capacity; 36 km from Bulandshahr, 60 km from Noida & 70 km from Faridabad & Ghaziabad, about 48 km from Greater Noida, 65 km from Aligarh, 65 km from Gurgaon and 130 km from Agra. It will be connected to the Yamuna Expressway, allowing domestic and international tourists to reach Agra, Mathura and Vrindavan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of Jewar Airport. YEIDA has identified 5,100 hectares for the project, out of which 240 hectares belongs to the state government and the rest is owned by private entities. YEIDA will acquire 1,327 hectares in the first phase for the construction of terminal buildings and runways. Bids for the airport are expected to be invited by the end of 2019. It will be the third commercial airport in Delhi NCR after Indira Gandhi International Airport and a regional airport at Hindon.
It is proposed to be connected to Delhi Metro via the Noida Metro route and via the Delhi-Faridabad-Ballabhgarh–Palwal-Jewar route.

History

The project was first proposed in 2001 by then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Rajnath Singh as a greenfield Taj International and aviation Hub at Jewar village near Greater Noida, adjacent to the Yamuna Expressway. The Central government cleared the techno-feasibility report for setting up TIAH in April 2003. It was to be built at an approximate cost of 5000 crore by the year 2007-08. The project was put on hold during the UPA regime because the project site was within 150 kilometres of an existing greenfield airport in Delhi. This site was within 72 kilometres of Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi. Its operator, GMR Group had protested against plans for another international airport within 150 kilometres of the existing Delhi airport, claiming that it would impact traffic and revenue generation. GMR has right of first refusal on a new airport within 150 kilometres of the existing Delhi airport. The RoFR was to ensure that GMR gets preference in bidding for the Greater Noida airport in case its bid price is within 10% of the lowest bidder.
When the Akhilesh Yadav led government was formed in Uttar Pradesh in 2012, it contemplated shelving the project while proposing a new international airport in Agra. In June 2013, the State Government finalized on the Kurrikupa village near Hirangaon, Tundla in the Firozabad district as the site for the proposed airport. In January 2014, the Defence Ministry raised some objections regarding the site near Tundla. The state government allocated land near Etmadpur for the proposed airport in November 2014.
In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party was voted to power at the Centre and the project was again shifted back to Jewar. The civil aviation ministry cleared the proposal for the new airport to be set up on 2,200 acres of land in June 2015 The Union Ministry of Defence cleared the project in June 2016. The Ministry of Civil Aviation gave an in-principle approval to the Uttar Pradesh government to build the airport in May 2018. In July 2017, the Union Chief Secretary for Aviation warned the Uttar Pradesh government to expedite the planning process as Hisar Airport was also pushing for its competing Union Cabinet approval for building another airport to serve the NCR region, thus prolonging the return on investment for both airports due to a still-feasible-but-diluted viability for both.

India's largest airport

With six runways once all its expansions are completed, it will be India's largest airport and among the world's largest airports. Only the O'Hare International Airport and the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport are larger, with eight and seven runways respectively. Other existing airports with six runways are Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Logan International Airport, Boston and Denver International Airport. As of September 2019, with three runways, the Indira Gandhi International Airport has the highest number of runways of any airport in India.
Currently there is a proposal to 2 additional runways to bring the total to 8 runways once completed. This is being done keeping future expansion in mind and is subject to the availability of land. The proposal has been given the green signal by Uttar Pradesh Chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

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