The Bhogapuram airport could aid Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s plan to make Visakhapatnam the executive capital of Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh has not had a fully civilian airport since its cleaving from Telangana in 2014, before which it had access to the Hyderabad airport, as seen here. (Supplied)
In a significant development, the decks appear to have been finally cleared for the construction of the Bhogapuram Greenfield International Airport, proposed between Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is visiting Visakhapatnam on 11-12 November, is expected to lay the foundation stone for the construction of the airport.
While a long-standing legal dispute that had halted the progress of the prestigious airport project was cleared a few days ago, it has now emerged that the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has issued a no-objection certificate (NOC) — that was pending for a long time — for the closure of the existing Visakhapatnam airport.
While the MoCA issued the NOC in September itself, it came to light only on Monday, 7 November.
A monthly summary report of the ministry said the certificate was granted to the Andhra Pradesh government on 13 September.
It essentially orders the “closure of scheduled commercial operations at the Civil Enclave at the existing Vizag Naval Airfield (INS Dega) for 30 years”.
Ever since the YSRCP came to power, there has been either slow or no progress on the proposal for the Bhogapuram airport, which is considered prestigious for the north Andhra region.
It is also expected to aid Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s plan to make Visakhapatnam the executive capital of Andhra Pradesh.
Reddy over time wrote several letters to Modi to secure this NOC from the MoCA. He wrote similar letters also to Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
He also sought a fresh site clearance and the NOC whenever the chief minister met the concerned Union ministers.
MoCA accorded its site clearance approval for setting up the greenfield international airport in 2016, with conditions to compensate the Airport Authority of India (AAI). However, the validity of the approval expired.
Though the state government identified a private player for this public-private partnership (PPP) project long ago, it did not progress at the desired pace due to the non-issuance of the aforementioned approval and several conditions being put forth by the MoCA to compensate the Airport Authority of India (AAI).
The AAI’s decision in the past not to close the Vizag airport even after the Bhogapuram project became operational jeopardised the plans of the state government, because no private player would come forward to develop the airport in that case, citing viability issues.
It was in 2018 that the MoCA’s steering committee recommended the non-closure of the Vizag airport. The then Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha, told the Rajya Sabha as much.
The AAI also wrote to Andhra Pradesh Airport Development Corporation Limited (APADCL) that the bidders should be informed about its decision.
It added that it had already incurred a huge expenditure in developing and expanding the Visakhapatnam airport, which is operated as a civil enclave from the naval air base called INS Dega.
As per the Greenfield Airport Policy of 2008, the construction of any greenfield airport across the country requires two-stage clearances: a site clearance and an in-principle approval.
A steering committee is constituted by the MoCA to examine and recommend the proposal before the granting of the requisite approvals. Such a steering committee meets at regular intervals.
It is learnt that the AAI has already invested ₹40 crore over the past year to develop airside capacity at the Visakhapatnam airport, which includes a runway and aprons, and spent another ₹60 crore on a new terminal building, which will take the current capacity of 3 million passengers per annum (MPPA) to almost 5 MPPA.
The Andhra Pradesh government had appointed the APADCL as the nodal agency to develop the greenfield international airport at Bhogapuram, and received in-principle approval from the Central government for the development of the airport, on a design-build-finance-operate-and-transfer (DBFOT) basis.
The Bhogapuram airport is being developed by the state government in a PPP model in accordance with the MoCA’s Greenfield Airports Policy.
Following competitive global bidding in 2019, GMR Airports Limited (GAL) was declared the successful bidder.
Accordingly, GAL incorporated a special purpose vehicle — the GMR Visakhapatnam International Airport Limited (GVIAL) — for the construction, operation, and maintenance of the airport on a DBFOT basis. Subsequently, GVIAL and the APADCL executed a concession agreement on 12 June, 2020.
The concession period for the Airport is 40 years, with a possible extension of another 20 years through a bid process.
Initially, the airport is expected to be built to service 6 MPPA, and scaled up based on passenger traffic growth. It will reportedly offer services catering to domestic and international travel besides cargo.
The proposed airport site lies on the border of the Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram districts, and is approximately 40 km from Visakhapatnam on NH-16 (old NH-5) and 25 km from Vizianagaram via NH-43.
The site is strategically located on the east coast and is expected to benefit from the vast catchment area surrounding the region.
The development of the airport will reportedly involve the construction of a greenfield airport and other supporting infrastructure with an annual capacity of around 6 MPPA in the first phase, to be upgraded subsequently to 12 MPPA in the second phase and 18 MPPA in the third phase.
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