Gujarat goes for ₹20,000-cr Dholera airport project

The Gujarat government has speed-ed up construction of the ₹20,000 crore Dholera International Airport, which is going to be the first smart city airport project. Once fully operational, it is expected to have an annual capacity of 50 million passengers as it will also handle the increasing traffic from nearby cities like Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Nadiad and Anand, and propel an airport led economic growth in the entire region in line with other Aerotropolis worldwide. The airport will be built on 1,700 acres of land, 29 km from Dholera and 80 km from Ahmedabad and is expected to decongest the Ahmedabad airport, which handles about 11 million passengers per annum, as against its capacity of 7 million passengers. The first phase of the airport is likely to become operational by 2024. The state has earmarked 1,426 hectares of land for the Airport at Navagam Village of Dholera Taluka in Ahmedabad District. The Dholera region is well connected by rail, road, metro and port as it houses several major industries, a large number of SMEs and MNCs. Of the six nodes identified in Gujarat under the Delhi–Mumbai Industrial Corridor, the Dholera Special Investment Region is the first one to be developed by the state government.