News: New airports - Ministry for priority to players with land

(BL 18/02/2007) New Delhi - With the Government facing all round flak over land acquisition issues, the Ministry of Civil Aviation is keen to ensure that a private person who has access to land gets priority while setting up an airport. At present, State governments decide on the site of the airport and acquire land for the project to come up.

The Ministry is keen that if an individual wants to build a private airport, this should be allowed as long as it does not interfere with air traffic control movements in the area. At such private airports, however, security and air traffic control activities would remain with the State.

In this context, the Minister for Civil Aviation, Praful Patel, has called on the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, and the Deputy Chairman Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, to review the airport policy.

"There is a need to see how we can have airports without the Government stepping in. At the same time, we must ensure that land related problems faced while developing Special Economic Zones do not come up at such airport projects. There is no reason why the Indian landscape cannot be dotted with airports as we see in the US," Patel said.

He was speaking at the foundation stone laying ceremony of the new integrated terminal and runway at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here on Saturday.

Patel said that he had also tried to "sensitise" Chidambaram and Ahluwalia on the need to provide some concessions to the sector. "We have written to the Finance Ministry requesting them to allow small jets to avail of the concession in sales tax on the sale of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) that is currently available to turbo-prop aircraft," the Minister said.

On the issue of modernisation of Chennai and Kolkata airports, the Minister said that the Government was serious about starting work at the earliest in the two metro cities. "In Chennai, we are waiting for the State Government to give us land. If that is not forthcoming, then we can look at a greenfield airport there. The modernisation of Kolkata airport, however, would be done by the Airports Authority of India (AAI)," he added.

Addressing the gathering, the Chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance, Ms Sonia Gandhi, stressed on the need to improve air connectivity particularly in areas such as the North-East.

Meanwhile, the new terminal in Delhi is to be called terminal III and would form the first phase of the modernisation plan.

The modernisation plan proposes having not only three runways, including Asia's longest, but also 74 aero bridges and 30 remote stands having the capability of parking 200 aircraft. The design, procurement and construction contract for the new passenger terminal building, runway and associated works has already been awarded to Larsen & Toubro Ltd.

"We are committed to completing the process in time and without any cost over run. Globally, creating a world class facility like this would take close to six years, but we feel confident about completing the process within three years well before the start of the Commonwealth Games in 2010," said the Chairman of GMR Group, G.M. Rao.

The GMR Group is heading a consortium selected by the Government to modernise Delhi airport.