Maharashtra has 29 airports and airstrips, the highest in India. However, only a few of these like Mumbai, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Shirdi and Nashik, are commercially operational.
With the Shirdi airport witnessing more number of flights and footfalls, the state government has cleared the decks for the extension of the runway, construction of a new terminal building and operationalisation of night-landing facilities. The airport, which connects Maharashtra's temple town of Shirdi and famous for the shrine of spiritual guru Sai Baba, has seen 5,744 flight operations and 4.10 lakh passengers since it was operationalised on October 1, 2017, to June 30 this year.
Senior state government officials said the over 350-hectare facility at Kakdi in Kopargaon near Shirdi has elbowed out older airports like Aurangabad, Nanded, Kolhapur and Nashik to emerge as the fourth busiest in the state after Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur. On an average, the airport caters to 22 flights a day, including 11 takeoffs and 11 landings from cities like Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad.
"We will float a tender in a month for the construction of a new terminal building at Shirdi. The work is expected to be completed in a year-and-a-half. This will increase the capacity of the facility to handle passengers to 1,000 per hour, from the present 300 (150 arrivals and departures each)," said Suresh Kakani, managing director of the state-owned Maharashtra Airport Development Corporation (MADC). On Wednesday, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis held a board meeting of the corporation.
Kakani said night-landing facilities would be launched at the Shirdi airport in around two months. This will allow the airport to cater up to 40 flights daily, he noted. The MADC will also extend the runway length to 3,200 metres from the present 2,500 metres.
According to a rough estimate, over 2-2.5 crore devotees from India and abroad visit Shirdi annually. The airport is expected to boost religious tourism to the temple town and promote industrial development. Lack of dedicated air connectivity meant visitors had to fly down to either Mumbai, Pune or Aurangabad and drive to Shirdi.
Later this month, Fadnavis is scheduled to attend the ground-breaking ceremony of the Amravati airport at Belora for the runway extension works. The runway's length will be increased to 1,850 metres from the present 1,382. The project has a target of March 2020. "Now, the airport can land smaller flights, but we want it to cater to larger aircraft," said Kakani.
The state government also plans to establish Greenfield airports at Boramani in Solapur and at Chandrapur. At Solapur, a chimney of a sugar factory is intruding in the existing airport's funnel.
Land Acquisition To Be Over By 2020-21 Fiscal
- The land acquisition for the Chandrapur airport is expected to be completed by the end of the 2020-21 financial year.
- Around 70% of the 840-acre land has been acquired. The runway will be 2,000 metres long and will later be extended to 3,000 metres.
- Maharashtra has 29 airports and airstrips, the highest in India. However, only a few of these like Mumbai, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Shirdi and Nashik, are commercially operational.
- Smaller airports lack scheduled flights and cater to only smaller aircraft, making them “underused”.
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