Government and other private entities are to spend up to 98,000 crores on the infrastructure development of airports over the next five years, the minister VK Singh said in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on Monday.
According to the statement, To meet the challenges presented by the unprecedented growth in air traffic, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) is undertaking the development of infrastructure at the airports, depending upon the commercial viability, traffic demand, availability of land and others.
In order to boost the growth in the aviation sector, AAI and other private airport operators have taken up the development of new and existing airports with a projected capital expenditure of around Rs 98,000 crores over the next five years, the statement said.
The government has also approved funding for the setting up of six greenfield airports namely, Dholera at the cost of Rs 1305 crore and Hirasar (1405 crore) in Gujarat, Dagadarthi (293 crore), Bhogapuram (2500 crore) and Oravakal (187 crore) in Andhra Pradesh and Donyi Polo (646 crore), Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh during the last 7 years. Out of these, Oravakal and Donyi Polo airports have been operationalised.
The government also spent Rs 452 crore on the establishment of the new civil enclave at Chandigarh Airport, Rs 401 crore on the development of Deoghar Airport, Rs 400 crore on the construction of a domestic passenger terminal building at Dehradun Airport and others.
However, during the last 5 years, AAI has also leased out its six airports including Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram under Public Private Partnership to Adani Enterprises Limited.
According to the statement, AAI has received concession fees of Rs 710 crore from these airports as concessionaires. The largest concessionaires came from Lucknow airport which is Rs 602 crore.