The government has formulated a Greenfield Airports Policy (GAP) which provides detailed guidelines, procedures and steps related to the construction of greenfield airports across the country, including in Bihar, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Gen V K Singh (Retd) informed the Rajya Sabha today.
Under the GFA policy, the project proponent- an airport developer or the respective state government willing to establish a greenfield airport is required to send a proposal to the Ministry of Civil Aviation in the prescribed format for a 2-stage approval process i.e., ‘Site Clearance’ followed by ‘In-Principle’ approval.
Under the GFA policy, the government has accorded ‘in-principle’ approval for setting up of 21 greenfield airports namely, Mopa in Goa, Navi Mumbai, Shirdi and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra, Kalaburagi, Vijayapura, Hassan and Shivamogga in Karnataka, Dabra (Gwalior) in Madhya Pradesh, Kushinagar and Noida (Jewar) in Uttar Pradesh, Dholera and Hirasar in Gujarat, Karaikal in Puducherry, Dagadarthi, Bhogapuram and Orvakal (Kurnool) in Andhra Pradesh, Durgapur in West Bengal, Pakyong in Sikkim, Kannur in Kerala and Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh.
Out of these, 11 airports viz. Durgapur, Shirdi, Kannur, Pakyong, Kalaburagi, Orvakal (Kurnool), Sindhudurg, Kushinagar, Itanagar, Mopa and Shivamogga have been operationalised.
The government has also granted the first stage clearance i.e. site clearance for the construction of three Greenfield airports namely Alwar in Rajasthan, Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh and Mandi in Himachal Pradesh.
The responsibility of the implementation of airport projects including funding of the projects rests with the concerned airport developer including the respective state government.