Proposed int'l airport in UP gets environment clearance

Bid date extended to April 29; GMR, L&T Gammon in fray

The proposed international airport in Kushinagar district of Uttar Pradesh has received the environment clearance by the Centre, thereby bringing the Rs 750-crore project a step closer to reality.

Kushinagar is part of the revered Buddhist Circuit comprising eastern Uttar Pradesh and adjoining areas in Bihar associated with the life and times of the Buddha. A large number of tourists and Buddhist pilgrims visit these places every year.

The proposed airport aims at connecting the Circuit directly with countries accounting for maximum number of arrivals, including Japan, Myanmar, Korea, China, Thailand, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.

“The project has received the central environment clearance recently and other clearances are expected to come by soon,” UP tourism secretary and State Tourism Development Corporation managing director Avnish Awasthi told Business Standard.

Meanwhile, the government has extended to April 29 the financial bidding date to enable the department finalise the bidding document and give more time to the prospective bidders for due diligence.

Four companies GMR, GVK, L&T and Gammon India are in fray and had already qualified the Request for Qualification (RfQ) stage.

This would probably be the first international airport to be developed by a state tourism department in the country. It would be built under Design Built Finance Operate Transfer (DBFOT) basis under the public private partnership (PPP) mode.

Awasthi maintained it was an ambitious project for the government, since Kushinagar was a tier III town. On the feasibility of the project, he said it was for the companies to complete the due diligence process regarding its marketability and traffic flow in future.

The proposed airport will have an airstrip of around 3,200 metre. Kushinagar already has an airstrip built in 1946, whose 97 acre land would also be transferred for the proposed project spanning 750 acres, he informed.

The government will acquire the land for the concessionaire, who will develop the airport after getting land on 60-years lease. The airport could be ready in 2-3 years time.

The Buddhist Circuit comprising Sarnath, Kushinagar, Sankisa Kaushambi, Shravasti and Kapilvastu attracts pilgrims from around the world, especially Japan and South East Asia.

Earlier, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) South Asia CEO Kapil Kaul had said since Buddhist traffic was significant in the area, the likelihood of airport was quite strong.

The Centre could step in with viability gap funding as a greenfield airport would take between 7 and 10 years to complete, Kaul suggested.