Jewar airport will give run for money to Delhi airport from 2025: Civil Aviation Minister

Rajnath Singh, former BJP president, during his stint as UP CM in 2001, mooted the first idea for the airport.

New Delhi: 20 years after it was first mooted, Uttar Pradesh finally got Vikas Jewar, its tenth airport. Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the Jewar International Airport near Noida on Thursday (November 25).

Hours later, Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said, "….Let me tell this today that 2025 onward, Jewar is going to give Delhi Airport a run for its money."

PM Modi also said the northern state was shown "false dreams" by the previous governments, and they kept it in "deprivation" and "darkness" for decades.

The first idea for the airport was mooted by Rajnath Singh, former BJP president, during his stint as UP CM in 2001.

Mr Scindia said the coming of the airport reflected the drastic change in governance approach as for years, the western UP has faced negligence and ignored.

"This part of UP has always been ignored….There have been issues of poverty, riots, issues across the board here. For a change, this part of UP is going to see now an investment of Rs 34,000 crore alone in the airport, and there will be an overall investment of about Rs 60,000 crore," the Civil Aviation Minister told a television channel. There will be moreover creation of one lakh jobs, he said.

He pointed out that the scale of developmental works carried out in the last few years is phenomenal. UP had only four airports in 70 years and now has nine, and the proposed new airport is the tenth. UP will soon have a total of 17 airports, he said, and the state will have five international airports-a quick jumps from only two. Besides Varanasi and Lucknow, now three more international airports will be at Kushinagar, Ayodhya and Jewar.

The new airport at Jewar is located only about 72 km away from IGI airport in Delhi, and a sum of Rs 10,050 crores has been released for the first phase of construction.

The first phase of the construction is expected to be completed in 2024. 

Two runways will be developed in stage 1. The construction works have been assigned to Zurich Airport International. Moreover, Scindia also pointed out that UP is connected to 80 cities across India.

"Please understand, the old paradigm was that the growth brings with it the connectivity. Today it is connectivity that brings growth," the Minister said, adding the first question any investor would ask today about investing in any remote corner is what's the connectivity.

It is worth mentioning that all major expressways like the Yamuna Expressway, Western peripheral Expressway, Eastern Peripheral Expressway and Delhi-Mumbai Expressway will also be connected to the airport.