The Bhogapuram Airport construction deal was recently awarded to GMR Visakhapatnam International Airport Ltd, a special purpose vehicle floated by GMR Group.
Santosh Patnaik
Visakhapatnam: A letter submitted by YSR Congress Parliamentary Party Leader V. Vijayasai Reddy to Civil Aviation Ministry to stop civilian operations at Visakhapatnam International Airport has generated a lot of heat in political circles in Andhra Pradesh.
Reddy in a letter dated November 18 urged Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri to expedite issuance of confirmation letter for closure of Visakhapatnam Airport for 30 years from date of operation of commercial operations at Bhogapuram International Airport.
It has raised a storm in political circles with all the opposition parties upping the ante against the move.
The Bhogapuram Airport construction deal was recently awarded to GMR Visakhapatnam International Airport Ltd, a special purpose vehicle floated by GMR Group.
The group has built Indira Gandhi International Airport at Delhi and Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad near Hyderabad.
The existing airport in Visakhapatnam, which is a naval airport, handled 80 flights a day before Covid-19 pandemic broke out with a compounded annual growth rate of 14% per annum. It has flight connectivity to Dubai, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok.
Defending his plea, Reddy said civilian operations had become difficult as the existing airport is under the control of naval authorities.
The Navy also raised objections to introducing new flights at the airport due to various reasons, he said.
Bhogapuram Airport is about 45 km from here and located at ideal distance from Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram.
Reddy pointed out that the Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad was shut for civilian operations once the Shamshabad Airport commenced commercial operations.
However, Telugu Desam Party, CPI, CPI (M) and Jana Sena Party had cried foul over the move. They wondered why closure demand is made when GMR Group is yet to lay single brick for the airport proposed in 2200 acres.
“There seems to be a big scam to favour GMR Group,” senior TDP leader and former Minister Bandaru Satyanarayana Murthy said.
The opposition parties say there is nothing wrong if two airports function from an industrial hub like Visakhapatnam.
The TDP when in power had proposed aerotropolis at Bhogapuram in an area of 5,311 acres. The YSRCP Government out of 2700 acres acquired for the project, earmarked 2200 acres for airport to be built by GMR Group under Public Private Partnership programme.
Sources told Odisha Channel that GMR wanted to handle 6.3 million passengers after completing first phase by December, 2023. The second phase project aims to increase it to 18 million passengers per year.
The Bhogapuram Airport is above seven hours drive from Bhubaneswar.
