Hirasar near Rajkot in Gujarat to get a greenfield airport! The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently approved the development of a new greenfield airport in the Hirasar district, about 28 km from Rajkot, in Gujarat at an estimated cost of Rs 1405 crore. The greenfield airport will be developed keeping in mind the renewable sources of energy like solar and wind energy. According to the government release, the estimated cost of Rs 1405 crore involves development and maintenance operations of the greenfield airport to be built at Hirasar.
The existing airport at Rajkot is severely land constrained with just 236 acres of land. It is situated in the heart of city. The existing Rajkot airport is also the fourth busiest airport in the state and suffers from considerable capacity restraints due to the presence of residential as well as commercial buildings around it. A railway line and a state highway located around this airport on the eastern side also prohibit the extension of the runway. Hence due to these limitations, there is no feasibility to expand the airport on the city or on airside, so the possibility of operating wide bodied aircrafts or big-sized airplanes at the existing airport location is also eliminated.
With the issues and constraints of the existing airport, the state government is keen to develop the new greenfield airport in Rajkot. The state government of Gujarat has identified the required land for the construction of the new airport and has requested the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to operate, maintain and develop the new airport. AAI is the statutory body which is under the Ministry of Civil Aviation and is responsible for the creation, maintenance and management of civil aviation infrastructure of the country. Reliance Infrastructure has bagged the Rs 648 crore contract from AAI to build the Hirasar airport.
The greenfield airport is to be built 36 km from Rajkot, which is the fourth largest city in the state of Gujarat, just after Ahmedabad, Surat, and Vadodara. The city constitutes the centre of the Saurashtra region of the state and the 35th largest urban agglomeration in the country with a population more than 1.2 million as of 2015. Rajkot is also the 22nd fastest growing city in the world, according to the press release.