Airports Authority to develop 50 new low-cost airports

New Delhi, June 28: State-owned Airports Authority of India will develop 50 new low-cost airports across 11 states.

According to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the decision was taken at a meeting held by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to finalise infrastructure project targets for 2013-14.

Apart from 50 new low cost small airports, the government has decided to go ahead with eight greenfield airports which will developed under public private partnership (PPP) mode.

The eight new greenfield airports will come up at Navi Mumbai, Juhu (Mumbai), Goa, Kannur, Chakan (Pune), Sriperumbudur, Bellary and Raigarh.

Two new international airports at Bhubaneswar, Odisha, and Imphal, Manipur, will also be taken up in the current fiscal.

The government also gave its nod to a proposal to hand over airport operations and maintenance through PPP contracts at various AAI-owned airports.

"Airports being considered are Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Guwahati, Jaipur and Ahmedabad," the PMO said in a statement.

State-wise list of the 50 new low-cost airports:

--Andhra Pradesh: Vijayawada, Nellore, Kurnool, Kadapa, Nizamabad, Tirupati, Anantapur, Karimnagar

--Jharkhand: Dhanbad, Bokaro, Hazaribagh

--Bihar: Muzaffarpur, Chapra, Sasaram

--Punjab: Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Firozpur

--Uttar Pradesh: Agra, Allahabad, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Meerut, Aligarh, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Azamgarh

--Arunachal Pradesh: Tezu, Momdila, Along

--Assam: Silchar, Jorhat, Tezpur

--Madhya Pradesh: Gwalior, Singrauli, Burhanpur,Khandwa, Jabalpur, Sidhi, Shahdol

--Odisha: Brahmapur, Raurkela, Kendujhar

--Rajasthan: Ajmer, Kota, Bhilwada, Alwar

--Maharashtra: Kolhapur, Nasik, Jalgaon, Solapur, Amarawati

IANS