Jewar airport to have 5 runways

NOIDA : The proposed international airport at Jewar will have five runways as the apex committee monitoring the project on Thursday approved a proposal in this regard.

The project monitoring and implementation committee (PMIC), headed by UP chief secretary RK Tiwari, is authorised to make critical recommendations to the government on the airport.

On Thursday, PMIC held a meeting in Lucknow, in which Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL) chief executive officer Arun Vir Singh, along with consultant agency PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), also took part. NIAL is the nodal agency to develop the airport project.Earlier, there were reports that the airport could have eight runways, but a PwC report on feasibility recommended five.The PwC gave a presentation about its survey on whether two runways project can be developed into six runways project.

NIAL chief Arun Vir Singh proposed that this project can have five runways as per the technical survey.

After a brain storming session, the state chief secretary approved five runways airport project at Jewar. The PMIC also said that the land acquisition can start at the site for second phase whenever the required funds are available. “In first phase, the airport will have two runways and the work on first phase will start by mid-2021. Zurich International AG will develop the first phase and make it operational by 2023-24. Now, we need to acquire land for three more runways,” said Singh.

The PMIC also approved the land acquisition plan.

Under phase-I, the government has acquired 1,334 hectares of land, and in total the government needs to acquire 5,000 hectares. Now, 1365 hectares of land will be acquired in phase 2, 1318 hectares in phase 3 while phase 4 will witness land acquisition of 735 hectares, the officials said.