Polls come and go, but Kushinagar continues to await international airport

Kushinagar is part of a Buddhist Circuit that comprises several districts along Eastern UP-Bihar border; other include Sarnath (Varanasi), Kaushambi, Shravasti and Kapilavastu

Kushinagar, an important Buddhist Circuit hub in Eastern Uttar Pradesh bordering Bihar, continues to wait for an International airport, which had been promised more than a decade ago. The constituency is scheduled to go to the polls in the last phase on May 19.

Although Kushinagar has an old airstrip over 97 acres to handle small aircraft, it has long been deemed inadequate to leverage the town's tourism potential for long-term socio-economic development.

An international airport was planned for Kushinagar to receive global tourists and provide direct connectivity to destinations in South East Asian countries, including Japan, China and Korea, which account for the highest proportion of pilgrims visiting the region.

According to legends, Lord Buddha attained ‘Nirvana’ (salvation) at Kushinagar, about 50 km from UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s pocket borough of Gorakhpur. The Buddhist Circuit comprises several districts along Eastern UP-Bihar border. These include Kushinagar, Sarnath (Varanasi), Kaushambi, Shravasti and Kapilavastu.

The proposal first came in 2008, when Mayawati was the UP chief minister. Successive regimes also pursued the idea and even held preliminary bidding. Yet, the blueprint could never materialise due to economic and market constraints in the domestic infrastructure sector.

The bidders who cleared the technical bid stage in March 2013 included GMR, Essel and Gammon India. The state had even acquired 550 acres for the purpose.

Kushingar International Airport was estimated to cost Rs 354 crore under public private partnership (PPP). In January 2014, the previous Akhilesh Yadav government had cleared the project under Design Build Finance Operate Transfer (DBFOT) basis and approved final bid document.

The proposed airport with a runway of 3,200 metres was estimated to serve 2,50,000 tourists annually and was even touted to be India’s first airport wherein the Centre had given in-principle approval for viability gap funding (VGF) of 20 per cent.

However, when it failed to evince interest of the private sector, the project, which was then being piloted by the UP tourism department, was transferred to the state civil aviation department.

A few weeks before the multiphase 2019 Lok Sabha polling started on April 11, the Adityanath government had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for the development of the existing Kushinagar airstrip into a full fledged Airport to handle bigger flights.

“We expect the Kushingar airport to be up and running within the next 12 months, as we have already transferred the land to the AAI, which is now developing the project,” UP additional chief secretary Awanish Kumar Awasthi told Business Standard.

The state cabinet had given nod for the permanent transfer of land and other infrastructure of Kushinagar airstrip to the AAI after it was selected for development under the central regional connectivity scheme (RCS) or ‘Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik’ (UDAN) III.

In fact, the Adityanath government is looking at boosting religious tourism by developing Kushinagar and Ayodhya airstrips into full service airports. In February 2019, the state had also approved prospective investment of Rs 640 crore for Ayodhya airport.