LUCKNOW: Outbidding giants like DIAL and Adani Enterprises, Switzerland’s Zurich Airport International AG has emerged as the highest bidder for the proposed international airport at Jewar, the biggest in India, on the outskirts of Delhi in Uttar Pradesh.
Jewar will be the national capital’s third airport after the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport (IGIA) and Ghaziabad's Hindon. The new airport will be around 100 kilometres from the IGI which is operated by GMR Group. The Hindon airport is used for the government’s regional connectivity scheme that subsidises flights.
The Switzerland-based company -- Zurich Airport International AG -- made the highest per passenger bid for the airport, leaving competitors like Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), Adani Enterprises and Anchorage Infrastructure Investments Holdings Limited behind, the officials said.
The selected bidder is expected to develop the first phase of Jewar Airport at an estimated cost of about Rs 4,588 crore with airport spread over 1,334-hectare area. It is expected to be completed by 2023, the officials said.
However, Jewar Airport or the Noida International Greenfield Airport, touted to have six to eight runways on completion, the maximum in any airport in India, will come up in an area of 5,000 hectares when fully constructed and is estimated to cost Rs 29,560 crores, Nodal Officer for the Project, Shailendra Bhatia said.
The global tender for the airport was floated on May 30 by the Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL), the nodal agency notified by UP government to manage the project.
The technical bid was opened on November 6 and the four bidders qualified on 27 November. The four developers had earlier met the technical requirements and made their bids for the ₹29,560-crore project.
Bids for the Jewar airport, located in Gautam Buddh Nagar under NCR, have been finalized after years of delay. The idea of developing an airport in Jewar was first conceived by the then UP CM Rajnath Singh in 2001.