30.3.10

Gujarat plans the father of all airports



The proposed international airport at Federa could well be the biggest in India. The Gujarat government has earmarked a massive 7,500 hectares of land, mostly wasteland, for the new airport at Navagam village near Dholera special investment region (SIR). The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has already cleared the site last month. Earlier, the state government had identified 1,700ha for the upcoming airport in Pachham-Valinda-Pipli stretch of Dhandhuka taluka. The new site falls under the influence of DMIC and is also close to three SIRs planned at Dholera, Sanand and Changodar. “The 1,700ha site notified for the project was not contiguous and had a large number of small land holdings. Hence, the new site has been shifted towards nearby Navagam,” said a senior official. The land would be handed over to Gujarat Industrial Corridor Company Ltd, a nodal agency for Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). Though the government is planning to use 2,800ha initially, additional land has been earmarked for future expansion of the airport as well as other aviation activities. Two different runways are part of the first-phase development. “A third runway would also be added as the need arises,” the official said. There is also a plan to connect the present Sardar Patel International Airport to the new one near Dholera through metro rail network. The state government has also carried out technical feasibility report for the Ahmedabad-Wataman-Dholera-Bhavnagar expressway.

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