Jewar Airport in UP to handle 12 mn passengers in phase 1, says Aviation Secy; 10 points

The international airport at Jewar in Gautam Buddha Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, is expected to witness traffic of 12 million passengers per year in the first phase, Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Bansal said on Wednesday. The official said once the final phase will be completed i.e. between 2040-2050, the capacity of the airport will be to handle 70 million passengers per year.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone for the international airport tomorrow and he has been personally monitoring the project, Bansal said. Over 2.5 lakh people are expected to attend the event.

Also read: PM Modi to perform Jewar airport's 'bhoomi pujan' on Nov 25

Here are 10 points on the Jewar Airport in Noida, which will be the fifth international airport in Uttar Pradesh:

1) 1,334 hectares of land has been acquired to build the Jewar airport. It is a greenfield project that will be implemented in four phases. Construction of the first phase will be completed in 36 months, the operation period for the first phase will be 2023-2027, Bansal said.

2) Domestic flight operations will start first at the Jewar airport in Greater Noida. The project cost of phase 1 is Rs 8,916 crore. The Uttar Pradesh government is spending Rs 4,326 crore on the acquisition of land, rehabilitation and resettlement.

3) The Jewar airport will be the second international airport to come up in Delhi-NCR after the Indira Gandhi International Airport.

4) Strategically located, this airport will serve the people of Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Agra, Faridabad and the neighbouring areas.

5) The airport has passenger terminals with 70 million capacity, 186 airport stands, a cargo terminal with one million tonne capacity will be connected by the Yamuna Expressway, Western Peripheral Expressway, Eastern Peripheral Expressway, Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, Noida Metro and proposed 800 km long high-speed Delhi-Varanasi rail line.

6) Two CAT III compliant runways will come up at the airport, termed the north runway and the south runway.

7) An airport hotel, a VVIP terminal, an open-access fuel farm, an airport rescue and firefighting building and a big rain harvesting pond are also planned for the complex. The Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) will soon invite bids for the construction of a 1,000-acre film city near the international airport.

8) It will be executed by the international bidder Zurich Airport International AG as a concessionaire.

9) The Jewar airport is among the significant promises made by the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, which is eyeing a return to power in Uttar Pradesh in the next year's assembly elections.

10) Adityanath announced on Tuesday that the airport will be completed by 2024 -- before the next Lok Sabha Elections.