PM Modi to lay foundation stone of Noida International Airport today: 10 key things to know

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone (bhoomi pujan) for Noida International Airport at Jewar in Gautam Buddha Nagar on Thursday (November 25). This will be the fifth international airport in Uttar Pradesh on completion.

The long-awaited project will be flagged off just weeks before the UP assembly elections are announced. PM Modi had inaugurated the Kushinagar international airport on October 20. Another international airport is under construction in Ayodhya.

Here are 10 key things you need to know about the airport:

1. The Jewar airport will be the second international airport to come up in Delhi-NCR after the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Strategically located, this airport will serve the people of Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Agra, Faridabad, and the neighbouring areas.
2. This will be UP’s fifth international airport – the most of any state – and will be a “game-changer”, the centre has said. At present, UP has eight operational airports. 13 airport and seven airstrips are being developed. It will also be only the second international airport in the NCR; the other is Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Airport.
3. It will be about 72 km from the IGI airport, about 40 km from Noida and about the same distance from a planned multi-modal logistics hub at Dadri. Work on the first phase is expected to be completed by 2024
4. Being built near Jewar in UP’s Gautam Buddh Nagar district, it is expected to serve people in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Agra, Faridabad, and nearby areas, as well help decongest air and vehicular traffic in and around IGI airport, the centre has said.
5. Connectivity will be handled by the “multimodal transit hub”, which will include metro and high-speed rail, as well as taxi and bus services. It will also offer private parking facilities, the centre said. Noida and Delhi will be connected via “hassle-free metro services” and major roads and highways will link the airport to other cities, the centre added.
6. A dedicated cargo terminal will have a capacity of 20 lakh metric tonnes, which will be further expanded to 80 lakh metric tonnes.
7. First phase costs will be over Rs 10,050 crore. The airport will be spread over 1,300 hectares and serve around 1.2 crore passengers. It will also be India’s first “net zero emissions” airport, with land for a ‘forest’ that will “preserve native species.
8. About Rs 34-35,000 crore will be invested in the construction of the airport and job and employment opportunities will be available to more than 1 lakh people.
9. Earlier UP had two international airports – Chaudhary Charan Singh in Lucknow and one in Varanasi (PM Modi’s constituency). Since 2012 a third has come up in Kushinagar and a fourth – in the temple town of Ayodhya – is due to become operational early next year.
10. Near the Noida International Airport, the state government has proceeded with the construction of Film City, which is in its final stages.