The government plans to rehabilitate old strips in small towns and tier two cities

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of the country to improve air coverage.

Airports Authority of India chairman V P Agarwal said, “ There are 454 airstrips in the country and we are compiling the capabilities of these strips.” He was speaking at a Bloomberg-UTV aviation summit.

However, developments of the airstrips would be taken up in partnership with the private sector. The 12 plan approach paper projects an outlay of Rs 80,000 crore. The airports authority would be investing only Rs 15000 crore. Using the PPP model of airport development, the AAI has already development of 14 airports of the 26 planned in the 11th plan period. Another 5 were expected to be completed this year and 7 were still in the planning stage.

Although, AAI had ample room to raise funds through market borrowings, Agarwal said, “ There are cost implications on borrowings that eventually gets passed to passengers.” Consequently, AAI was restricting its borrowing requirements, instead relying largely on internal resources. AAI has already taken up the development of 35 non-metro airports in the country.

The development included setting up at least 14 green field airports in the country. The new airports would be taken up in high density tourist destinations. Over a period, the airports some of the airports would be upgraded into international terminals. Among those likely to be upgraded to international terminals include Amritsar in Punjab.

The aviation market development was also expected to increase the demand for aircraft. India currently has a fleet of 735 carriers, both owned and leased in the public and private sector aviation companies. But the carriers were expected to increase to 2000 by the 2030.

This was in view of the AAI ambitious projections. AAI estimates that the India would become the third largest aviation market in the world after, the US and China. Presently, India is the ninth biggest aviation market in the world, handling close to 233 million passengers per annum. “Given this situation, we need to create capacities for meeting future demand,” Agarwal said. Not all of them were likely to immediately make profits, he said. But they would break even if the current pace of growth sustained. The rider was that costs would need to be kept low.