Cabinet nod for setting up Kannur airport

New Delhi, Jan 17: The Cabinet today approved setting up of a green field airport in Kannur, Kerala at a cost of Rs 929.5 crores to be built across 2000 acres of land.

The airport will be built through a Public Private Partnership (PPP), Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said after the Cabinet meeting.

With this move, Kerala is now on track to having the most number of international airports in the country at an average of one every 130 kilometre.

The airport woud have a single 13,000-feet runway capable of taking in aircraft of almost any size.

This will be Kerala's fourth, in the Build-Own-Transfer (BOT) mode and the airport is banking on the 2.5 million and a still growing number of Kerala NRIs, besides the tourism industry.

The Kannur airport will have an international airport each on its north and south at Kozhikode and Mangalore.

Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan has indicated that the airport will be constructed broadly along the lines of the highly successful Nedumbassery airport in Kochi.

The government is understood to hold 26 per cent equity in the venture covered mostly in the form land cost.

UNI