Patel: The way ahead

New Delhi, April 23: Mumbai may soon get its second international airport with the Centre planning to invite bids for equity participation in the project by the year-end.

“Land issues relating to the project have been resolved. The government will now proceed for cabinet approval on bidding,” civil aviation minister Praful Patel said at an Indo-US aviation seminar here today.

After Mumbai, it will be the turn of Delhi and then Calcutta to get a new airport.

Sources said the government was likely to give its permission for an international airport at Noida. Calcutta, too, will need another airport by 2016, the sources added.

According to a government estimate, Indian airports will handle 400 million passengers a year by 2020. The traffic on domestic routes will rise six-fold to 180 million by 2020 from about 32 million now.

The projections for Mumbai — India’s principal aviation gateway — is 91 million passengers by 2030-31 from the present 20 million.

The proposed Navi Mumbai International Airport will cost around Rs 4,235 crore. It will be run on the public-private partnership principle through an SPV.

The Airport Authority of India and Maharashtra’s City and Industrial Development Corporation will jointly hold a 26 per cent in the SPV, with the private partner picking up the remaining 74 per cent.

Patel said there was a possibility of increasing the FDI in companies operating helicopters, seaplanes and chartered airlines from the present limit of 49 per cent.

Officials said this might even go up to 74 per cent. They said the norms might be relaxed for cargo airlines as well.