Two Greenfield Airports in the North Eastern Region – Pakyong and Itanagar, Hollongi, have been constructed under Greenfield Airports (GFA) Policy, 2008, the government informed Parliament on Monday.

“The Ministry of Civil Aviation has launched Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) – UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) on 21-10-2016 to stimulate regional air connectivity including in the North Eastern Region, and making air travel affordable to the masses. The Scheme is demand driven,” Minister of State for Civil Aviation Gen (Dr) VK Singh (Retd) said in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

“Under the UDAN Scheme, 10 airports in the North Eastern Region namely Pasighat, Tezu, Itanagar (Hollongi), Jorhat, Lilabari, Rupsi, Tezpur, Shillong (Barapani), Dimapur and Pakyong have been operationalised/revived,” the Minister said.

The Government of India (GoI) has formulated a Greenfield Airports (GFA) Policy, 2008 which prescribes the procedure and conditions for development of new Greenfield Airports in the country. There is a two stage process of approval, i.e. ‘Site-Clearance’ followed by ‘In-Principle’ approval.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has submitted an application under GFA Policy, 2008 to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) for grant of ‘Site-Clearance’ for development of a Greenfield airport at Doloo TE, Cachar, Assam. As per the GFA Policy, the proposal has been sent to the stakeholders concerned including Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Ministry of Defence (MoD) for their comments.

After completion of this consultation with stakeholders, the proposal is required to be placed before the Steering Committee on Greenfield Airports for their recommendation, with respect to award of Site Clearance.

As per the GFA Policy, 2008, the responsibility of implementation of airport projects including funding of the project, land acquisition, R&R, etc., rests with the airport developer concerned including the respective State Government in case the State Government is the project proponent.

The timeline for construction of airports depends upon various factors such as land acquisition, mandatory clearances, removal of obstacles, financial closure etc by the respective airport developers, the Minister said.