Will look at Greater Noida airport project: Minister

The government will look at building the Greater Noida airport to ease the infrastructure pressure on the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport here, the newly appointed minister of state for civil aviation said Wednesday.

"We will look at the technical aspects of the Greater Noida airport, as it will ease the over-stretched infrastructure pressure on the IGI Airport here. A big metropolitan area like Delhi should have two airports to ease the pressure on the existing infrastructure," Mahesh Sharma, minister of state for civil aviation and tourism, said here.

Sharma, who is the member of parliament from Gautam Budh Nagar for BJP, took charge here at the ministry of civil aviation at its headquarters at the Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan here.

The 55-year-old is a trained doctor and national convener of the medical cell of the BJP. He is also the chairman of Kailash Group of Hospitals.

In 2001, the then UP chief minister Rajnath Singh proposed the idea of an airport located in Greater Noida. Later, governments including those of Mayawati, proposed the project be set up in Jewar, near Greater Noida.

However, the incumbent UP government scrapped the project, citing a clause that bars development of a second airport within a 150-km radius of an existing one.

According to Sharma, the ministries of civil aviation and tourism should work together and their policies should be supplementary to each other to bring in more in-bound visitors.

"Civil aviation and tourism should work together and their policies need to enhance each other so that more visitors can be brought in India. Air India's role in bringing in foreign visitors is also of utmost importance," Sharma said.