By IANS
New Delhi : India would have a new civil aviation policy by the first quarter of 2008, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said here Wednesday. The policy would facilitate setting up regional airports across the country.
He also said the government is proposing to set up multi-nodal merchant airports that would be built by entrepreneurs based on the concept of “aerotropolis”, a population and business centre formed around an airport in the way cities once formed around ports or crossroads.
“This has been forwarded to the committee on infrastructure headed by the Prime Minister. After its endorsement, the ministry will move a cabinet note,” he said at a conference on “Aerotropolis: Airport Cities”, organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham).
He also said the entire process would take two to three months.
Six new regional airports by next year and increasing the number of operational airports across the country to 80 from the current 50 would be done in next one year and over 100 thereafter, said Patel.
The minister indicated that the government is also looking at the proposal by various state governments to expand their airstrips through joint venture arrangements to build merchant airports.
The states that have offered their airstrips for conversion into merchant airports and aerotrpolis include Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.