Mumbai: According to a PTI report, four years after inking a MoU with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for expansion and development of the Vijayawada Airport at Gannavaram, the Andhra Pradesh government has now finally decided to speed up the process of acquiring required land for the purpose.
N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh approved the land acquisition proposals and directed the state Finance Department to release Rs 76 crore required for the purpose. The Vijayawada Airport expansion has been delaying for the last four years as the state government failed to acquire the required 361 acres of land to expand the runway.
The airport, which is currently spread over 350 acres of land with an old terminal building, is handling only ATR-make aircraft with daily flights operated to Hyderabad, Chennai and Bengaluru. The expansion plan includes extension of the existing runway to enable landing of bigger aircraft like the Boeing 737 and Airbus .
As per the MoU signed between the state government and AAI in 2007, the Vijayawada Airport expansion works, including construction of modern passenger terminal building and hangars, should have been completed by 2009 but the inordinate delay in acquiring land has thrown the plans awry. The expansion works were estimated to cost Rs 200 crore.
14/04/11 TravelBizMonitor
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