A string of airports in Gangetic plains aims to change the face of travel

These airports in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal could also provide logistics services and help bring down notoriously high freight charges out of these states

(Note: This is the first of a three-part series on regional connectivity in India. The second part will be published on March 19, 2025)  A logistical mark-up happening across three of India’s most populated states - Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal - is slated to push India’s economic growth significantly higher. The most visible manifestation of this will be the inauguration of Jewar airport in Uttar Pradesh, slated for this summer, less than 100 km from Delhi. 

Other nodes are coming up in quick succession across the Gangetic plains, too, transforming the pace of connectivity across the region. True to form, though, these are happening in an uncoordinated fashion. While airports and metro links will multiply rapidly, rail links are way behind in making good on the potential of the densely populated region spanning these three states. Their combined area of 4.24 lakh sq kms, a multitude of irregularly built cities and census towns, is an expanse matching that of all four southern states. 

The next to be off the mark could be the already-operational Andal airport in West Bengal, which the JSW Group now plans to develop. Bihar, the slowest off the block, will see the renovated Patna airport inaugurated later this year. To add to these, there are a number of more airports in the pipeline. 

While each of these projects have progressed slower than their original timelines, a reflection of the administrative roadblocks that bedevils these states, the critical mass is now in place. 

These emerging links can change the economic geography of the region, for long peppered with towns but with few gateways to the west and south of the country. Consequently, connectivity costs between these towns are sky-high. The Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation runs a meagre 11,549 buses in the entire state, just a third more than the size of the fleet of buses in much-smaller Delhi. Bihar, with a miniscule 579 buses, and West Bengal with 2,990 (as of FY19, per the Union ministry of road transport and highways) are even further behind. 

The rapid changes to this dismal connectivity picture means a big deal for the locked-in population of these states. Let us examine the state of air connectivity first.

 

Air Transport

 

The biggest of these will be the Noida Jewar International Airport. According to Tata Projects, the contractor for the project being developed by Zurich Airport International, the airport will have an initial capacity of 12 million passengers annually and a final capacity of 70 million, making it one of India’s largest. While the first phase of the project was scheduled to be operational by November 2024, the delay has been minimal. 

At the other end of the Gangetic plains is the Andal airport, about 80 km from Kolkata, and which is already functional with 16-odd flights daily. For the densely populated southern region of the state, the airport has come as a boon. What made news, recently, was  the announcement by JSW chairman Sajjan Jindal that he will pick up an equity stake in the airport. “This would be our first entry into the airport business,” Jindal said in Kolkata. As a Business Standard report noted, the investment through the group company, JSW Infrastructure, would mean buying a stake from private investors in the Bengal Aerotropolis Projects Ltd (BAPL), the company which runs the airport. The West Bengal government owns a 26 per cent stake in BAPL while Singapore’s Changi Airports has 33 per cent. The state has now begun to explore airport alternatives, such as scaling up operations from Bagdogra which connects both Darjeeling and Gangtok. 

Airports are getting traction in these belts. Bihar already has two fully functional airports other than Patna, at Gaya, serving the Buddhist circuit with international flights to Bangkok and Yangon, and at Darbhanga, both of which have sharply cut back travel time for the state's substantial migrant population. People from the Purnea belt, a locus of large out-migration, no longer need to travel five hours to catch a flight from Patna, using Darbhanga instead. On ordinary days, a ticket to Delhi or Ahmedabad typically costs Rs 5,000. While the cost is much higher than a train's AC sleeper class at Rs 1,100, the travel time and the long waiting period for tickets, never less than a week, makes up for the price difference for travellers.   

The challenges for their growth, however, comes from availability of land and the scope for ensuring cargo operations.

 

Old challenges persist

 

Andal airport has a rich hinterland, including a deep coal belt, which has created a ring of large cities in the region, all of whom are chafing at the poor connectivity out of those towns. The heavily urban population has to depend mostly on rail links to connect with Kolkata in the east, or to faraway Delhi on the west. Despite its potential, old risks could stymie the project. Jindal cautioned land issues could flare up. “We want a clean slate,” he said. West Bengal is also peppered with old military airstrips, which have been shuttered as no land was available to make them commercially viable. 

Up the river, the expansion of Patna airport has also been stuck so far due to land issues. The Airports Authority of India, which operates the airport, has found it cannot expand the runway, which is currently just over 2 km in length. Instead, it has added a parallel taxi track to offer every metre of the strip for the aircrafts to land or take off. The government-run company has done better in refurbishing the terminal, almost building it afresh, and more than tripling its handling capacity from 3 million to up to 10 million passengers annually. The new-look airport was scheduled to be inaugurated in January this year, but has been revised to April. International flights, long a a big demand from the state’s residents, are expected to resume with the new facility. 

Both BAPL and Patna will need to provide space for larger cargo operations, as demand from cities for lower logistics costs in the region rises sharply. An December 2024 NCAER study 'Framework for Assessment of Logistics Cost In India' notes: “Logistics cost has implications on the country’s manufacturing sector, export competitiveness, and global positioning." One of those costs is that of making available land parcels easily. 

Some of these obstacles are the reason the latest annual version of the Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) 2024 report of the ministry of commerce and industry still clubs Bihar and West Bengal in the second and third rung of their groups in terms of performance on logistics. Among landlocked states, Uttar Pradesh does well as an achiever, along with Haryana, Telangana and Uttarakhand. But it too has miles to go to open up connectivity. 

For airports to become viable commercial centres, they need land for logistics operations. Both Bihar and UP have just two air cargo terminals each, while West Bengal has only one. Crisil data shows that as of July 2024, the government had operationalised 84 airports and 579 routes under its 'Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik' (roughly, 'May the nation's common citizen be able to take a flight') scheme to increase regional penetration. “While the impact is small at present, with air traffic in these airports contributing about 2% of domestic air traffic, these regional routes will be important as they provide feeder traffic to the metro airports," Crisil said.

 

Where do cargo hubs fit in?

 

The outlook for cargo hubs is also expected to change, albeit gradually. Airports like the newly inaugurated Ayodhya are meant primarily for passengers, as is Patna. Jewar, however, is expected to be India’s largest cargo hub, while Bihta in Bihar is also expected to focus on cargo.  As Uttar Pradesh pushes itself as a manufacturing centre, the role of Jewar will be clearly crucial. Bihar could now finally see its potential as a food processing giant materialise. In Budget FY26, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that an institute will be set up in Bihar for food processing, leading to a jump in food processing companies' stocks. The importance of Andal will also be as a cargo hub. 

Expansion of the cargo business is expected to remove a critical bottleneck wherein almost 90 per cent of Indian air cargo is handled by just six airports, all of them in metros. The 'Air Cargo Outlook 2025-2029' report, issued by Trade Data Service, a research resource operated by logistics consulting firm Trade and Transport group, projects Indian air cargo to hit about 6 million tonnes (MT) by the end of this decade, up from about 3.7 MT in 2025. The data, though, is based on projections of growth of e-commerce, which is not the key business driver of airports on the northern Indian plains. Cargo companies like Dubai-based SolitAir, which is planning to tap into the Indian cargo market, are focussing on Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. 

As the NCAER report of last year notes, "In India, logistics costs are perceived to be disproportionately high, impacting  manufacturing growth and economic competitiveness”. The ring of airports along the Ganga could begin to meaningfully change those numbers. 

FLIGHT PATHS

 

* Noida International Airport set to open this summer with an initial capacity of 12 million passengers, scaling up to 70 million

 

* Andal airport near Kolkata is already functional and may become a cargo hub with JSW Group planning an equity stake in the project

 

* Patna airport has been upgraded to handle 10 million passengers annually, but runway constraints limit further expansion

 

* Darbhanga and Gaya airports in Bihar have improved access for the state’s migrant and religious tourist population

 

* Cargo remains a bottleneck: UP and Bihar have just two cargo terminals each; West Bengal has one. Jewar is slated to become a major cargo hub

 

* Land acquisition and logistics infrastructure remain a challenge, particularly in Bihar and West Bengal