Land acquisition top priority for TS

Mr Rao offered speedy land acquisition for the proposed airports and asked the Infrastructure and Investment department to pursue these proposals with the Centre.

He has also urged the Centre to expand the proposed Air Force Station in Adilabad to offer civil aviation services for which additional land has been offered.

The government has proposed to set up a greenfield airport in Kothagudem. It has already identified land to an extent of 1,600 acres at Punukuduchelka village in Kothagudem mandal, which is 240-km (aerial distance) from Hyderabad international airport.

After receiving proposals from the TS government, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) will order for a pre-feasibility study based on which a final decision on setting up these airports will be taken by the Centre.

The TS government had already engaged the consultancy firm RITES Ltd to undertake a pre-feasibility study on these airports. The firm has completed the pre-feasibility study of Kothagudem airport and has found the project to be viable.

An official in the Infrastructure and Investment department said, “Similar studies will be undertaken for other airports also, which would be useful in securing approvals from the Centre. The government is keen on completing land acquisition for all airports within a year and hand the same over to the Civil Aviation department so that the projects can be executed fast without any hurdles.”

However, doubts are being raised over securing approval for the Nizamabad airport since it cannot meet the norms of having a minimum aerial distance of 125 km between both airports when compared with Warangal.