The Government has accorded 'In-principle approval' for setting up of 21 Greenfield Airports across the country. So far nine (9) Greenfield airports have already been operationalized and tenth Greenfield airport at MoPA, Goa has been inaugurated on 11.12.2022. Since the year 2018, seven (7) Greenfield airports namely Pakyong (Sikkim), Kannur (Kerela), Kalaburagi (Karnataka), Sindhudurg (Maharashtra), Kushinagar (Uttar Pradesh), Orvakal (Andhra Pradesh) and Donyi Polo (Arunachal Pradesh) airports have been operationalized apart from inauguration of Manohar International Airport at MoPA, Goa.

Upgradation of airports is a continuous process and is undertaken by Airports Authority of India (AAI) from time to time depending on the availability of land, commercial viability, socio-economic considerations, traffic demand/ willingness of airlines to operate to/ from such airports etc. For the construction and upgradation of airports, AAI has incurred CAPEX of Rs. 2504.38 crore in 2017-18, Rs. 4297.44 crore in 2018-19, Rs. 4713.49 crore in 2019-20, Rs. 4350 crore in 2020-21 and Rs. 3724.34 crore in 2021-22.

During pre-covid period, in the year 2018-19 the number of passengers footfall at airports across the country increased by 11.6% as compared to previous year i.e. 2017-18. The passengers footfall decreased during pandemic era. However, post-covid, in the year 2021-22 the trend shows an increase of 63.7% over the year 2020-21.

This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Civil Aviation Gen. (Dr) V. K. Singh (Retd) in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.

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YB