Patna, Sept. 19: The proposal of a greenfield airport with aircraft manufacturing facilities — something compared only to Seattle or Toulouse — has hardly found any serious taker in the government.

Industry department bosses have termed the Rs 92,000-crore project “absurd” although Beltronics Techno Private Limited CEO says the company had everything ready, including land and investors, to give the project a real shape.

The State Investment Promotion Board has put the proposal on hold while asking the Patna-based company’s CEO, Balram Kumar Singh, to come up with a detailed presentation.

“It actually came as an absurd proposal. Besides talking about a huge investment, the company wants an approval for setting up the airport with a 7km long and 3km wide runway. We have asked the company CEO to come back with a detailed presentation about the project, which talks of manufacturing seven-seat to 375-seat aircraft,” industries department principal secretary Afzal Amanullah said.

Boeing in Seattle, US, and Airbus in France’s Toulouse manufacture such huge aircraft for their clients worldwide. The company — with its interest in construction business — first approached the industries department in February this year. “In February, we submitted project documents to the department as was asked. There is private land available near Didarganj in Patna City and we just want the department’s help in acquiring the same. We have approached the government again as we are in regular touch with our investors,” the company CEO, said with confidence.

However, industry department sources also said the proposal was quite unreal. “He talks about 640 acres of land near Didarganj in Patna City. It sounds a bit unreal as such a huge piece of land is a dream near the Patna periphery. But we are not taking things lightly,” a department official said.

KPS Keshari of Bihar Industries Association and O.P. Sah of Bihar Chamber of Commerce said Beltron Techno Private Limited was not affiliated to any of the industrialists’ organisations. “We only know that the company has submitted a proposal to build an airport,” said Sah.

On Tuesday, a total of 102 different projects related to solar power, rice husk-based power plants, hotels among others worth Rs 16,149 crore were approved by the board.

A rice husk-based power plant with the capacity to produce 2MW to 3.5MW power, another 30MW power generation plant in Gaya, 10MW generation capacity plants each at Darbhanga, Gaya, Muzaffarpur and Munger were also given the go-ahead.