MADC upbeat about Nagpur, woos investors

Confident about the future of the Multi-modal International Hub Airport (MIHAN) here, the Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) has urged entrepreneurs to line up investment for purchasing land for the proposed project and assured that the entire infrastructure will be in place within a period of three years.

"If the infrastructure is not in place in the specified time period after the purchase of land, the MADC will pay a penalty at a rate of 10 per cent per annum," said MADC vice-president and managing director, R C Sinha.

Addressing a seminar on "MIHAN and unlimited opportunities" organised by MADC on Saturday, Sinha said that the master plan on a special economic zone (SEZ) and the international passenger and cargo hub airport will be ready within a month and be printed in the form of a gazette in the leading dailies of the country.

The project, it was disclosed at the seminar, could see an investment of about Rs 5,000 crore by 2015.

Selling MIHAN to investors, Sinha said, "MIHAN is a rare business opportunity."

Various facilities in MIHAN are proposed on private-public partnership with MIHAN holding a minority 49 per cent stake in all undertakings. For each facility of the project, MADC will float a special purpose vehicle.

Sinha said that this was to ensure that all facilities come up as per MADC's master plan and coincide with its vision. "The vision," he said, "is to make Nagpur the aviation centre not only of India but of entire Asia."

MADC will be a facilitator and co-ordinator and will obtain all statutory clearances for a particular project, Sinha said.

According to Sinha, it has already been handed over 400 hectares of land. Another tract of land, measuring 278 hectares and currently with the Indian Air Force will be handed over after discussions with the Defence Ministry.

The total area planned for the project is 3,000 hectares that will be developed in phases.

Over 300 people attended the seminar. Sinha explained that MIHAN aimed to be international and domestic cargo and passenger hub.

plans to extended the length of the airstrip at the Nagpur Airport from 3,200 metre to 4,000 metre to support large aircraft, Sinha added.

There will be maintenance facility for aircraft, besides related facilities. Reacting to the Union cabinet's decision on Friday to make Nagpur an international airport named after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Sinha said he more than happy with the proposal.

Adjacent to the airport will be a special economic zone (SEZ). The airport-centric SEZ will be a deemed foreign territory spread over 1,300 hectares. It will have an IT park, a health city, a road terminal, a garment park and a 100 MW captive power plant, besides being sought by aviation-related companies.

Former chief secretary of Maharashtra Arun Bhongirwar chaired the inaugural session. Joint managing director of MADC, Dr Sanjay Mukherjee, divisional commissioner, Dr S. K. Sharma, municipal commissioner, Manu Kumar Srivastav, district collector, Lokeshchandra, former chairman of Airports Authority of India (AAI), D V Gupta, chairman of CII, Maharashtra State Council, Banmali Agrawala and president of Vidarbha Economic Development Council (VED), Vilas Kale were present on the occasion.

Scott Wilson representative Rajeev Vijay presented a paper on the SEZ. General manager (Cargo), AAI, Dinesh Kumar spoke on the scope for air traffic / transport at MIHAN. R Kaushik of Prasad Associates, Hyderabad spoke on the road terminal and vice-president of SICOM Dilip Umralkar gave the business outlook on MIHAN.