Heliport to come up in Rohini area

If you can afford a small aircraft or a helicopter you may be able to land in Delhi’s northern suburb Rohini. If not, you could still avail private helicopter services to be launched for tourists in remote areas, especially in northern India. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jun 13, 2011, 23:06:25 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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If you can afford a small aircraft or a helicopter you may be able to land in Delhi’s northern suburb Rohini. If not, you could still avail private helicopter services to be launched for tourists in remote areas, especially in northern India.

Delhi is set to get its first heliport outside the Palam airport area, where small aircrafts and helicopters land.

The environment ministry has accorded in principle approval for constructing a heliport in 25 acres of barren land in Rohini, a few kilometers away from the Rithala metro station. The proposal, mooted by the civil aviation ministry, will cost Rs 64 crore.

“The heliport is already approved under the Master Plan of Delhi and the environment ministry’s approval is required,” the civil aviation ministry said, adding it will be used for civil as well as military purposes.

The proposed heliport will have sufficient facilities to cater to a sizeable numbers of passengers. A terminal building in 2000 square meters, which can be expanded further, will be constructed. There will be parking facilities for more than 100 passenger cars.

“The ground access requirements will include terminal curbside, roadways, and vehicle parking for employees and visitors,” said the civil aviation ministry’s proposal.

The new air landing facility in Delhi will have at least four hangars capable of maintaining large helicopters such as the Mi 172 of the Indian Army. “It will have all facilities that a small heliport requires,” an official said.

Considering the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the proposal, the environment ministry has stipulated conditions to protect local water quality, compensatory afforestation for 59 trees that will have to be cut and ways to maintain local noise levels.

The environment ministry also asked the project proponents to provide details of solid waste and water waste management to be incorporated at the new heliport. The ministry wants the new project, first of its kind in Delhi, to be environment friendly. If all goes well, Rohini can have its small air space in the next two to three years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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