Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Dec 25: The construction of 21 Greenfield Airports around India has received ‘In-principle approval’ from the Indian government. According to a written reply to the Rajya Sabha by Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Lt Gen (Retd) VK Singh, ten of these airports have already been operationalized in the nation, with the most recent being the Manohar International Airport in Goa, which opened on December 11 of this year.
Aside from the opening of Manohar International Airport at MoPA, Goa, seven airports have been operationalized since 2018: Pakyong (Sikkim), Kannur (Kerela), Kalaburagi (Karnataka), Sindhudurg (Maharashtra), Kushinagar (Uttar Pradesh), Orvakal (Andhra Pradesh), and Donyi Polo (Arunachal Pradesh).
For the building of these airports, the Airports Authority of India incurred expenses of 2504.38 crore in 2017–18, 4297.44 crore in 2018–19, 4713.49 crore in 2019–20, 4350 crore in 2020–21, and 3724.34 crore in 2021–22.
The number of passengers passing through airports nationwide during the pre-covid period in the years 2018–19 increased by 11.6% in comparison to the year before, which was 2017–18. The epidemic era saw a decline in passenger foot traffic. However, post-covid, the trend shows an increase of 63.7% over the year 2020-21 in 2021–2022, the Minister noted in his response.
