On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the Noida International Airport (NIA) in Jewar, Gautam Buddha Nagar. With this, Uttar Pradesh will become the only state in India to have five international airports.
According to officials, the new airport which is located at a distance of about 72 km from the IGI airport in New Delhi will be India’s largest after its completion. The first phase of the development of the airport is being done at a cost of over Rs 10,050 crore and is scheduled to be completed by 2024. It will have the capacity to serve around 1.2 crore passengers a year and will expand to serve 70 million passengers by the end of phase 4, depending on passenger growth and traffic.
Spread over more than 1,300 hectares of land, the airport will be the second international airport to come up in Delhi-NCR.
“This project will significantly boost commerce, connectivity and tourism,” the PM tweeted.
The construction of this airport comes just weeks after the prime minister inaugurated the Kushinagar international airport in Uttar Pradesh to boost the country’s aviation sector. Another international airport is presently under-construction in Ayodhya.
In stage 1, there will be a two runways airport of 1,334 hectares for which an agreement has been signed. In the following stage, the third runway in a 1,365-hectare area will come up for which land acquisition is under process. The 4th runway is on a 1,318-hectare area while a 5th runway has been proposed in the second stage. The cargo terminal will have a capacity of 20 lakh metric tonnes, that can be expanded to 80 lakh metric tonnes.
It will be executed by international bidder Zurich Airport International AG as concessionaire, PTI reported. The groundwork for the first phase has been completed already.
It will also be India’s first net zero emissions airport. The land has been earmarked to be developed as a forest park using trees from the project site. Connectivity will be handled by a multimodal transit hub with metro and high-speed rail, as well as taxi and bus services. Noida and Delhi will be linked via hassle-free metro services and major roads will link the airport to other cities, the centre said.
Once constructed, the airport is likely to help decongest the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi.
According to a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office, the airport is strategically located and will serve the people of cities including Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Agra, Faridabad and neighbouring areas.
The PMO said that the airport is set to be the logistics gateway of northern India and will help establish UP on the global logistics map.
All major roads and highways like the Yamuna Expressway, Western Peripheral Expressway, Eastern Peripheral Expressway, Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and others will be connected to the airport.
On Tuesday, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath came to the Jewar site to review preparations and said that the state is working on airports in areas where people could not have imagined earlier. He also mentioned that the airport will bring 1 lakh jobs, and that many other projects like Film City, Electronic Park are coming up in the region. “For many years, there have been discussions on the possibility of an airport in this region. But due to lack of political will, it could not materialise. I am thankful for the vision of the Prime Minister because of which the airport is being built. The government focused on development activities and this will be a monumental project for the public in West UP,” he stated.
The airport has run into controversy over protests from farmers whose lands had been acquired for construction. They have camped in tents 700 metres from the airport. A local BJP MLA admitted land had been acquired in a hurry.
PM Modi said that after 7 decades of independence, for the first time, Uttar Pradesh has started getting what it has always deserved. With the efforts of the double engine sarkar today, Uttar Pradesh is turning into the most connected region of the country.
The Jewar airport will be connected by Yamuna Expressway as well as Noida Metro. The proposed 800-km-long high-speed rail line between Delhi and Varanasi is also expected to have a stop at the new airport.
