AG grounds second Delhi airport

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

Related Articles

Air passenger traffic falls to minus 13.7 pctAI withdraws transaction fee on US, Europe routeFare cut after ATF gets declared goods tag: MallyaJet to decide soon on expat pilots issue: CEO

Lucknow, New Delhi, Aug 27: The country’s highest law officer, the attorney general of India, has told the Centre that setting up a greenfield airport in Greater Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi would clearly violate the agreement signed between the GMR group-led consortium upgrading the Capital’s Indira Gandhi International Airport and the ministry of civil aviation.

This means that the proposed Rs 5,000-crore Taj International Aviation Hub at Jewar in Greater Noida—first conceptualised in 2001 by UP chief minister Mayawati’s previous administration—is unlikely to come up now. The verdict also grounds Haryana’s first proposed airport at Jhajjar. Both airports would lie within 150 km of Delhi airport, violating the developer-ministry concession agreement.

In February, a group of ministers had given the Greater Noida airport in-principle approval, while also creating another group to look into the legal issues. The second GoM had asked the law ministry to examine the matter, which, in turn, sought the attorney general’s views.

With the attorney general agreeing with the law ministry’s view that the Greater Noida airport would violate the concession agreement, the Mayawati government has few options left to see the project though. It was one of the chief minister’s pet projects and a key element in the development of western UP as an industrial hub.

According to a source, the state government is contemplating legal recourse to counter the attorney general’s opinion. “From our side, the case is still wide open, as the civil aviation ministry has already cleared the techno-feasibility of the project. The only reason that the project seems to have been grounded temporarily is because of the fast-changing political equations between the Mayawati government in the state and the Congress at the Centre,” said a source familiar with the developments.

The chief minister’s principal secretary, VN Garg, told FE that the state government was yet to receive official intimation from the Centre. “Only when we get an official communiqué can we decide on our next move,” he stated.