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Our Bureau

Major airports to be modernised with 4 years

New Delhi , Oct. 7

The bill for establishment of an independent regulatory authority for airports would be tabled in Parliament during the forthcoming winter session, the Secretary Civil Aviation, Mr Ajay Prasad, said on Saturday.

"The Cabinet note for establishment of an Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) is ready and would be shortly sent to the Cabinet for its nod. Thereafter, we hope to be able to table the Bill in the forthcoming winter session," Mr Prasad said while addressing a conference on `Building infrastructure: Challenges and opportunities'.

The proposed regulator is to look into a host of issues including determining tariffs at the major airports and ensuring that there is a level playing field among all airports.

The Secretary added that the Government planned to modernise the major airports around the country within the next four years at an estimated cost of Rs 40,000 crore.

Outlining the steps taken by the Government to improve infrastructure, Mr Prasad said while a final decision on the route to be taken for modernisation of Kolkata and Chennai airports would be taken shortly, the Government has already received the master plan for modernising Delhi and Mumbai airports.

"Besides, the greenfield airport projects in Bangalore and Hyderabad would be commissioned by April 2008. In addition, we have received requests from seven States including Karnataka which has sought to develop greenfield airports in Hassan and Gulbarga," Mr Prasad said.

Furthermore, during the Eleventh Plan period, the Government planned to make all major domestic airports capable of being able to handle the Airbus A-319 and Airbus A-320 aircraft, while all the international airports would be in a position to handle Boeing 747 or Boeing 777-300 extended range variety of aircraft, the Secretary added.

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