The civil aviation ministry is considering three proposals to set up privately-owned, or merchant, airports in Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh), Durgapur (West Bengal) and Jhhajjar (Haryana).
The proposal for the Gwalior airport comes from sugar baron Vikram Shrivastava, managing director of Gwalior Sugar Corporation Ltd, for a cargo airport at an investment of Rs 300 crore.
The Durgapur proposal is for a passenger airport and has been submitted by a joint venture between Pragati 47, a Kolkata-based real estate and infrastructure developer, and Haryana Urban Development Corporation.
The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation and the Asansol-Durgapur Development Authority are financial partners in the project.
In Jhhajjar, the proposal for an international cargo airport has been submitted by Reliance Industries and will be part of its special economic zone.
This interest from private players comes in response to a new policy expected to be ready in a couple of months to allow privately-owned airports.
Under the policy, the private sector will identify the land and build and operate the airport without funding from the government. Unlike the airports being built by the private sector in Bangalore and Hyderabad, merchant airport operators are not required to pay the government a revenue share.
Merchant airports are also different from other private airport initiatives because they do not involve bidding -- the proposals come from the private party and not the government.
The Gwalior airport will cover less than 1,000 acres. The airport will have one runway for cargo aircraft.
The airport in the Durgapur-Asansol belt, 175 km from Kolkata, will come up over 2,000 acres and have one terminal, with two cross-runways of 1.7 and 1.4 km each to accommodate 50- to 70-seater aircraft.
The airport alone will cover about 1,000 acres and the rest will be used for real estate development, including an airport city (or aerotropolis) around the same area with theme parks, retail outlets and hotels.
"Apart from decongesting Kolkata airport, a passenger airport in Durgapur will also usher in massive development of the industrial belt. Among the top 10 fastest developing non-metros in India, Durgapur and Nasik are the only ones that do not have airports yet.
Nasik will get one soon. So an airport at Durgapur is extremely feasible," said an industry expert.
The Jhhajjar airport will cover 4,500 acres but the project might be in question after the government put a 5,000-hectare (12,500-acre) restriction on SEZ sizes a few months ago.
The Haryana SEZ was originally 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres).
An aviation ministry official said the Airports Authority of India had conducted a feasibility study of Durgapur and Gwalior would follow. "On Jhhajjar, we only have a letter of interest," he added.
The policy was expected in two months, said Civil Aviation Secretary Ashok Chawla, adding, "We want to finish the work as soon as possible since there is a lot of interest building around the concept."
The government is already looking at certain changes to make merchant airports attractive and even compete with the bigger airports. For instance, the stricture that a second airport cannot be within 150 km of an existing one may be relaxed.
"The 150-km rule is part of the airport policy of 1997. But according to the civil aviation policy, this rule can be relaxed where the traffic movement is justified. But if there are specific contractual obligations, as in the case of Delhi, those will be factored in," said Chawla.
Apart from the merchant airports, several low-cost airport projects (with budgets of Rs 300 crore to Rs 500 crore) are being considered in Maharashtra and Karnataka.
