The upcoming Noida international airport at Jewar in western Uttar Pradesh will eventually be bigger than Delhi’s facility and create 100,000 job opportunities, Union aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Thursday at the foundation-laying ceremony of the mega project.
Scindia said Jewar airport, located in Gautam Buddh Nagar district of western Uttar Pradesh, will bring investments worth ₹60,000 crore. The first phase of the greenfield project is expected to be completed in 2024 with a capacity of 12 million passengers annually.
“By the last phase of development, the Noida International Airport will even surpass Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport and become India’s leading airport,” said Scindia.
The final phase is expected to be completed by 2040- 2050 with a capacity to handle 70 million passengers annually. In comparison, according to civil aviation ministry, Delhi’s IGI airport currently handles 69 million passengers annually, and is expected to handle 110 million after its expansion work is completed.
“It was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s direction that Asia’s biggest airport had to be built in Uttar Pradesh,” Scindia said. “Where there is a will, there is a way.... It was an ambitious resolution of the prime minister, which has come true today.”
Scindia declared that Uttar Pradesh will have 17 airports in all with the government adding eight new ones in the next two years in the state.
{{/usCountry}}Scindia declared that Uttar Pradesh will have 17 airports in all with the government adding eight new ones in the next two years in the state.
{{/usCountry}}UP had six (Prayagraj, Varanasi, Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra and Gorakhpur) airports. The government has added three (Hindon, Bareilly and Kushinagar) airports in 2021 and aims to add five more (Aligarh, Chitrakoot, Azamgarh, Moradabad and Shrawasti) by 2022 .
Jewar airport is expected to commence operations from 2024. The government also aims to start flights from Muirpur (Sonbhadra) and Ayodhya.
“Earlier, there were only four airports in Uttar Pradesh but now there are nine airports and this (Jewar) will be the 10th airport in the state,” Scindia said.
”From 74 airports in the country, we built 136 under the prime minister’s guidance.”
Under the multi-modal connectivity system, Jewar will be connected via road, rail, bus and even metro, Scindia said.
The minister also said that one hundred thousand people will get jobs.
“Noida International Airport will generate employment for one lakh [100,000] people,” the civil aviation minister said while addressing the gathering at Jewar.