The new greenfield airport at Navi Mumbai will come up at the proposed site and not be shifted elsewhere, a top Civil Aviation Ministry official said in New Delhi on Tuesday.

"Since there is no other site suitable for the airport, the proposed greenfield airport will come up at the same proposed location," Ashok Chawla, Secretary, Civil Aviation Ministry, said on the sidelines of the International Seminar 'Indian airports: The emerging opportunities' in New Delhi.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has also written to the Civil Aviation Ministry for building the airport at the originally proposed site, he said. There had been demands to shift the proposed Navi Mumbai airport to a new site due to environmental issues.

On the future of the existing Bangalore airport, Chawla said, "the government is working on the guiding principle, based on consensus for keeping the existing airport open." He said the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority Bill is in Parliament and once it is through, the body will be in place by October, 2008.

The regulator would look into aspects like aeronautical charges, user development fee and passenger fee. Chawla said India's aviation sector was growing three times faster than the country's GDP and the government is now focusing on the development of the cargo sector.

Speaking about the future, he said: "half a dozen aerotropolis (metropolis around the airport) will come up in the near future."