The Uttar Pradesh government, on Friday, signed agreements for operation and management of five new airports with the Airports Authority of India (AAI). The airports will come up in Aligarh, Azamgarh, Shravasti, Chitrakoot and Sonbhadra.
While the airports will be developed by the state government, the AAI will be a service provider, offering operation and management services. The properties and wealth of all airports will be transferred to the AAI for the purpose.
The next step after the MOU is the licensing of the airports.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who was present during the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) said, “I am happy that this important MoU has been signed today. Under the regional connectivity scheme, we will avail of the services of the AAI to operate and manage five new airports.”
“These airports are being setup in places that have been somehow left behind in the race for development. Shravasti, Sonbhadra and Chitrakoot are aspirational districts. Air connectivity will give these places new wings” Adityanath said.
“In Azamgarh (which is in the west), five years ago, no one could have thought that there would an airport someday. People were scared of working here. We have taken out the Purvancahl Expressway through Azamgarh. But once the work stated, there was no opposition to it,” he said.
Explaining the necessity of having an airport at Aligarh, the CM said it was an important hub for hardware manufacture. Noting that a new node of defence corridor would be in the district, he said air connectivity is important for this.
Chitrakoot is an important part of the Ramayan circuit. Lord Ram had spent the time when he had been banished here. “A beautiful airport is coming up on a hill,” said the CM.
Before 2017, there were only two operational airports in the state—Lucknow and Varanasi. The ones in Gorakhpur and Agra were partially functional. Among the four airports, 25 destinations were covered. Today, the state has nine working airports, while work is on in the tenth. Air services are available to 75 destinations, despite the fact that two years were lost to the pandemic.
