Big investment planned for non-metro airports

The Airport Authority of India has said that they are planning to invest as much as Rs 1,500 crore to modernize at least 10 non-metro airports in the country by 2008.

The organization is currently awaiting approval from the Ministry of Civil Aviation on the final list of airports to be covered in the first phase of this non-metro airport modernization programme.

They have already identified the first 12 cities to be covered by this program: Jaipur, Udaipur, Srinagar, Amritsar, Ambala, Thiruvananthapuram, Vishakapatnam, Mangalore, Nagpur, Goa, Varanasi and Trichy.

10 of these 12 airports would be upgraded using the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. These upgrades would include modernization of terminals, parking bays, taxiway and runways.

The AAI sources said in a statement on this new development: “It, however, will be subject to the decision of the committee on infrastructure headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on what kind of a model will be followed for the development of city side and what kind of facilities could be developed.”

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