Defence Ministry grants NOC for Jewar Airport

Defence Ministry has granted NOC (No Objection Certificate) for the proposed Jewar international airport in Greater Noida, Gautam Budh Nagar District. The project which was initiated by the previous Mayawati government, received an in principle decision from civil aviation ministry early in July 2016.

According to sources, the procedures and sanctioning of the airport received impetus from the push of the former minister of state of civil aviation and Member of Parliament from Gautam Budh Nagar, Sri Mahesh Sharma. The minister had lost his position during the cabinet reshuffle exercise of Modi recently, which had raised confusions over the proceedings of the airport.

Modi government have introduced Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) for facilitate air connectivity to remote routes and as of now, the scheme is expected to be finalized in August 2016. According to Mahesh Sharma, new regional airport like Jewar has received massive push as the direct effect of the RCS. The availability of land in the area and the strategic move on the wake of the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in the next year might be the reasons that have tilted the approval of airport in favour of Uttar Pradesh.

BJP had established their last win in Uttar Pradesh during the 1997 elections, which ended when Rajnath Singh stepped down as chief minister in 2002. Since then, Uttar Pradesh is being ruled by Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for over a decade, creating somewhat urgency for BJP to capture the rule in the state. Bhiwadi in Rajasthan is the other city which has also received sanction for new airport.