Noida airport unlikely to take off

NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati’s pet airport project at Greater Noida is unlikely to pass muster, now that her staunch opponent, the Samajwadi Party, is getting ready to play a larger role at the Centre.

The project was given an ‘in principle’ approval by the Union Cabinet about five months back and a small group of ministers (GoM) was constituted to examine all legal implications of allowing this project to come up less than 150 km from the existing Delhi International Airport (DIAL).

The GoM comprises legal eagles such as law minister K R Bharadwaj,  finance minister P Chidambaram,  civil aviation minister Praful Patel and the minister for science & technology, Kapil Sibal.

But five months hence, the GoM has held just one meeting and civil aviation ministry officials are now doubtful whether the project will get the green signal at all during the remaining tenure of the UPA government.

Though Samajwadi Party boss Mulayam Singh Yadav also wants to put Uttar Pradesh on the international tourism map, he wants an international airport closer to his constituency (Etawah) and may not favour Mayawati’s chosen spot.

But changing political equations at the Centre is not the only reason for this project to hang fire.

It was already mired in controversy over its proximity to DIAL when the Cabinet nod came last February.

According to the Airport Infrastructure Policy 1997 (which was relevant till then), no greenfield airport can be allowed within an aerial distance of 150 km of an existing airport; the Greater Noida project is just about 70 km away from the Delhi Airport.

The DIAL project is being modernised by a consortium led by the GMR Group and the latter has projected that the existing airport is capable of handling 37 million passengers by 2010 against a projected passenger traffic of 29 million (and 100 million against the projected traffic of 82 million by 2026). It has therefore contended that any new airport which comes up close to the existing one would lead to revenue dilution.

The uncertainty over the fate of the Greater Noida airport comes even as the government dusted the cobwebs off the proposal to name the Lucknow airport after former Prime Minister, Charan Singh.
b_sindhu@dnaindia.net