The Central Government has accorded 'in-principle' approval for setting up of 21 Greenfield Airports across the country, and eight of them have been operationalised so far.

The 21 new greenfield airports include Mopa in Goa, Navi Mumbai, Shirdi and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra, Kalaburagi, Vijayapura, Hassan and Shivamogga in Karnataka, Dabra (Gwalior) in Madhya Pradesh, Kushinagar and Noida (Jewar) in Uttar Pradesh, Dholera and Hirasar (Rajkot) in Gujarat, Karaikal in Puducherry, Dagadarthi (Nellore), Bhogapuram and Orvakal (Kurnool) in Andhra Pradesh, Durgapur in West Bengal, Pakyong in Sikkim, Kannur in Kerala and Hollongi (Itanagar) in Arunachal Pradesh.

"So far, eight Greenfield airports namely Durgapur, Shirdi, Sindhudurg, Pakyong, Kannur, Kalaburagi, Orvakal and Kushinagar have been operationalised," Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation General (Retired) V K Singh said in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on Monday (25 July).

In addition, Government of India has also granted the first stage clearance i.e. site clearance for construction of three greenfield airports at Alwar in Rajasthan, Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh and Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, the minister said.

The minister informed that the Centre has formulated a Greenfield Airports Policy, which prescribes procedure and conditions for development of a new greenfield airport in the country.

As per policy, if any developer including the State Government desires to develop an airport, it is required to identify a suitable site and get the Pre-feasibility Study conducted for construction of airport and submit a proposal to the Central Government for 'Site-Clearance' followed by 'In-Principle' approval.

A Greenfield Airport is set up at a place where there is deficit of infrastructure available for air transport services or the existing air infrastructure for the place is constrained/saturated to meet the growing air traffic demand.