Jewar airport likely to get required land by end July

Lucknow

With the 2022 Uttar Pradesh (UP) assembly elections barely seven months away, the state government is expediting the mega infrastructure projects to bolster its self-acclaimed development agenda before the electorate.

One of these projects is the flagship Jewar greenfield international airport project in Greater Noida. The state is targeting to complete the acquisition of 1,365 hectares of land for the proposed Jewar airport by the end of July.

Earlier, 90 per cent of the required land was proposed to be acquired in April-May 2021. However, the stiff second wave of the pandemic plausibly delayed the process following lockdown and other exigent elements.

According to the UP Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) CEO and state additional chief secretary Awanish Kumar Awasthi, the agency would acquire the entire parcel of land required for the project so that the civil works could start in earnest.

UPEIDA would transfer the land to the Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (YIAPL), the special purpose vehicle floated by the concessionaire Zurich Airport International (Zurich AG) to develop the airport in the Gautambuddha Nagar district.

On October 7, 2020, the state government had signed a concession agreement with Zurich AG for the project. On March 1, 2021, the Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL) had signed the State Support Agreement (SSA) with Zurich AG, which mandated the government to provide the necessary infra for the airport, including public transport system, roads, railways, metro rail, security etc.

According to the techno-economic feasibility report, the Jewar airport would handle 70 million passengers and 3 million tonnes of cargo annually when fully developed in different phases.

The airport will be designed, developed and operated under a 40-year concession period and Zurich AG will invest more than Rs 4,500 crore in the first phase of the project. It will also decongest New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) and boost industrial development in the Noida and Yamuna Expressway region.

Meanwhile, the UPEIDA is also targeting to acquire 90 per cent of the total 7,800 hectares required for the proposed Ganga Expressway project, which is estimated to cost more than Rs 36,000 crore. It will traverse Meerut, Hapur, Bulandshahr, Amroha, Sambhal, Badaun, Shahjahanpur, Hardoi, Unnao, Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh and Prayagraj districts.

The bidding process for the infra project is expected soon. Its pre-bid meeting was attended by top infra developers, including a few foreign companies.

Recently, UP chief secretary RK Tiwari had directed officials to ensure that the infra projects, including the airports and expressways, progressed according to their timelines to avoid time and cost overruns.

Meanwhile, the under-construction Rs 23,000-crore Purvanchal Expressway is likely to be thrown open to the public by August 15, while the Rs 15,000-crore Bundelkhand Expressway, another big project, is set for completion by December 2021. The Gorakhpur Link Expressway project has a commissioning timeline of Mar-Apr 2022.

(Virendra Singh Rawat is a Lucknow-based financial and economic journalist.)