MIHAN Project

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport, Nagpur

• Nagpur, the second capital of Maharashtra State has a strategic place among the international aviation routes. Its unique location at the crossing of the air route between Europe and South-East Asia, as well as between South Africa and North-East Asia makes it a logical and ideal location for passenger and cargo hub. The project involves construction of a second runway, a new terminal building and a cargo complex through a build-operate-transfer basis. This will may Nagpur city one among the most important business and economic nucleus in the central India and Asia.
• Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport is a customs airport serving the city of Nagpur, Maharashtra and India. It was named after Bharat Ratna Dr. "Babasaheb" Ambedkar, the chief architect of the Indian Constitution in 2005. Though an airport has been existing at Nagpur for many years, it has never been an important airport, possibly because airport developments so far in India were based on regional requirements and there was no concept of hub airport. At present about 120 – 140 passenger trains and about 80 – 100 freight trains cross Nagpur every day. Apart from this over 7000 trucks cross Nagpur every day. Their integration with International Passenger and Cargo Airport facilities would make it very advantageous and cost effective for development of air transportation.

• As a part of MIHAN Project, it is planned to expand/upgrade the existing airport as International Passenger & Cargo Hub.
• The prospects for cargo traffic are enhanced by the development of an Inland Container Terminal (ICT) and Truck Terminal (TT) close to the airport. The ICT has domestic and international divisions and has services by rail and road links. In view of the excellent position of Nagpur on the trunk national routes of roadways and railway, considerable amount of inter-modal cargo traffic, from and to road and rail modes is expected for the airport.
• The proposed hub Airport will help Nagpur to emerge as a leading international tourist gateway for India providing a number of new tourism route options, especially for Adventure, Wild life and Buddhist tour circuits.
• The potential for creating an international hub airport at Nagpur can be gauged from the fact that there is hardly any Hub Airport in a 5-hour fly-zone from India (i.e. between Dubai and Singapore). All over the world there are clusters of hub airports within 1 to 2 hours of fly zone. Much smaller countries around India over the years have successfully set up major hubs and are drawing huge transit traffic.
• Nagpur has very good potential for becoming an International Hub Airport also in view of its geographic location. For the international hub-and-spoke traffic, the following routes have been identified as potential Hub-routes: Europe- S-E Asia & South Pacific; Africa-NE Asia; Europe-South West Asia; NE / SE Asia-South West Asia. On the domestic front Nagpur will act as a hub for all North-South-East-West traffic in India. Nagpur probably has the best location in India from the point of view of sustaining domestic hubbing.
• Nagpur Airport is expected to draw its due share from the available market for India. Depending upon the kind of infrastructure at Nagpur and the competition from existing and proposed new hub airports. Nagpur has a distinct advantage over other proposed Airports in terms of (a) low gestation period (on account of the existing Airport); (b) expected rapid development of domestic connectivity (on account of its unique location to support domestic hubbing); (c) Easy Access to almost 10% of the potential International hubbing traffic in the form of currently over-flying flights over the City (accounted by over 55 different Airlines); (d) Possibility of creating perhaps the best multi-modal infrastructure in the country within MIHAN.
  • To be spread over an area of approx. 1400 Hectares of land
  • Additional parallel second runway of 4,000 M x 60 M (Code F runway)
  • Terminal building to handle 7 million passengers per annum by 2044-45
  • Cargo Complex to handle about 60.000 MT per annum by 2044-45
  • Taxiway (Code F) connecting two parallel runways and the Terminal building
  • Parking bays to accommodate about 100 aircraft at a time
  • Underground fuel hydrant system
  • Hotels, shopping complex, entertainment facilities etc.
• In order to remove the development backlog of vidarbha, Government of Maharashtra decided to develop Nagpur airport as a Hub airport for both Passenger and cargo. Accordingly, in the year 1999, this project was assigned to MSRDC. On the directions of the Government of Maharashtra, MSRDC conducted the Techno-economic feasibility Study (TEFS) through a consortium of consultants led by M/s. L & T Ramboll in the year 2001.
• On 18 Dec 2006, an MOU was signed between the State and Central Government wherein it was decided to form a Joint Venture Company with Maharashtra Airports Development Company (MADC) holding 51% and Airports Authority of India (AAI) holding 49% equity participation and also to transfer the assets of Nagpur airport to such Joint Venture Company, viz. MIHAN India Ltd. (MIL)
• A joint Venture Agreement to this effect was signed on 22 Feb 2009 and a joint venture company, viz. MIHAN India Ltd (IML) was registered on 09 Jun 2009