A tender inviting concessionaires for an international airport at Jewar is likely to be out in August, according to a senior official of the nodal agency YEIDA. The Ministry of Civil Aviation cleared a proposal for Jewar airport in Uttar Pradesh’s Greater Noida last year. It will be the second airport in the National Capital Region. “The bid document inviting concessionaires for Jewar airport will be made public in August. The aim is that we finalise the concessionaire by the end of this year,” Chairman of the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority, (YEIDA), Prabhat Kumar said. Ministry of Civil Aviation Secretary, R N Choubey has said that he expects that the foundation stone of the airport will be laid in December this year after the bid is awarded to the selected concessionaire.
Flight operations could begin by December “even if the project is not complete”, he said. These timelines were discussed earlier this week in a meeting with the secretary, other officials from the ministry, Airports Authority of India and YEIDA, who also visited the airport site. The YEIDA also aims to start acquiring land for the airport in July. The Gautam Buddha University has been assigned the task of preparing a social impact assessment for the process required as per the law. The officials of the YEIDA and civil aviation ministry will also be meeting the environment secretary next month before seeking its clearance for the project, Kumar said.
The authority will also be appointing a consultant to carry out a technical feasibility study for connecting the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi with the proposed airport in Jewar airport as well as a separate super-fast connectivity between Jewar and Delhi. “The viability of airport increases if you have improved connectivity between Delhi and Jewar. We will be appointing a consultant to do a study on that,” the YEIDA chairman said.
