New Airports To Be Ready In A Year, Says Ashok Gajapathi Raju

The Centre will set up 50 regional airports over the next three years, according to Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju.

“Of these, at least 10 will be operational within a year”, he told a select group of aviation reporters here. With bigger states such as the Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu or Rajasthan looking to improve their better regional air connectivity under this scheme, the government should also try and improve the air routes to the North-eastern states as well. Maharashtra becomes the first state to ink a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the state government, ground operations management (GoM), civil aviation ministry and the AAI for refurbishing and restarting a number of non-operational airports.

Raju conveyed that he will be undertaking similar visits to several other States across the country to promote the Regional Connectivity Scheme and discuss other related issues in the States and expressed hope that several airports in the State will see activity as flights take off from these places as a part of the Regional Connectivity Scheme. “This agreement is the first step to convert that wish-list into a work-list and then a reality”, he said.

The agreement was inked in the presence of Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and top Airport Authority officials.

The regional connectivity model will be based on the viability gap funding, under which 80 percent of the cost will be borne by the state government and the rest by the government.

“A total of 32 airports in the country, including the one at Salem in Tamil Nadu, remain unused”. In the case of the northeastern states, the central subsidy will be 90%, the minister said.

Whether any airline has signed on for RCS, he said everybody is interested but nobody has come forward. The cost of each of these airports would be about ₹50-100 crore. “In fact, they are non-performing assets for us”.