Work on Delhi’s second international airport to begin in August

Will be Asia’s biggest and world’s fourth largest

BY S VENKAT NARAYAN
Our Special Correspondent

 NEW DELHI, July 30: Delhi’s second international airport, known as the Noida International Airport (NIA), will enter the construction stage in August for its main terminal building and runway. They have to be completed within the next 25 months. Its deadline for launching commercial flights is September 29, 2024.It will be Asia’s biggest airport and the fourth largest in the world. The distance between the present Delhi airport and the NIA is 31km.

 The building and the runway will be built by Tata Project Limited (TPL), which has been awarded the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for NIA.A spokesperson for Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (YIAPL), the special purpose vehicle of NIA concessionaire Zurich AG, said the terminal building and runway will be ready by the last quarter of 2024. The agreement has a stiff penalty clause of one million Indian rupees per day if the deadline is missed as per the agreement signed by the Government of Uttar Pradesh and Zurich AG.

NIA, which will become the second international airport in the National Capital Region (NCR) is meant to handle 12 million passengers annually. Besides the terminal building and the 3,900-metre-long runway, Tata Projects will also construct airside infrastructure, roads, utilities, landside facilities and other ancillary buildings.

The entire airport project is slated to be built over four phases by the end of 2061. By the end of the 40-year concession period of Zurich AG, there will be two terminal buildings and an equal number of runways. The airport master plan is prepared to accommodate the demand throughout the 40-year concession period with two runways.

The airport will open with a single runway and a terminal capacity to handle 12 million passengers per year. By the end of the concession in 2061, it will be developed with two parallel runways and additional terminal capacity to serve 70 million passengers, said the official.

The initial terminal building will cover 102,000 sqm. The second one is envisaged to be much bigger, about three times in size. The plan for the second runway accommodates a bigger strip of 4,150 metres. “We also plan to develop a ground transportation centre that will feature a multimodal transit hub, housing metro and high-speed rail stations, taxi, bus services and private parking,” the official added.

 The UP government is still exploring options to connect the airport, which is in Jewar off the Yamuna Expressway, to Noida and Delhi. Metro is one of the options being explored.

In its first monthly report to NIAL, the state government’s special purpose vehicle to oversee and coordinate on the airport project, Engineers India Limited (EIL) has informed that construction of a support building has started at the airport site. Besides that, an 11kV capacity substation has also been set up at the site to meet the initial power requirement of the airport, officials said.

EIL has been appointed to oversee construction work of the airport. NIAL CEO Arun Vir Singh said: “The boundary wall work of the airport is almost complete. The airport is also expected to get an explosive licence by next month as fuel will be stored at the site.”