Pune has existing airport at Lohegaon, Pune which is under the control of Indian Air Force. It is the 10th busiest airport in the India. It has designed capacity to handle 1.5 million passengers p.a. which has grown exponentially to about 9 million p.a. presently. By 2025, it may grow up to 18 million p.a. Under such circumstances there is need to have new Greenfield Airport at Pune. The responsibility of development of this airport has been assigned by Government of Maharashtra (GoM) to Maharashtra Airport Development Company Ltd. (MADC) in the year 2009 since, then efforts were made to locate the suitable site for this airport. As latest attempt in this regard was made in the year 2016 wherein representative of GoM, AAI, Revenue Department of Pune and MADC carried out aerial & road survey of Purandar area and identified six possible locations for proposed airport. After conducting desktop examinations of all the identified sites, based on availability of site information, geographical features, area space requirements, flight procedure design perspectives of airport operations with respect to Pune IAF operations etc. AAI zero down on site 1A covering land in villages namely Pargaon, Kumbharwalan, Wanpuri etc.
MADC obtained MoD clearance for this site and Site Clearance from Steering Committee (SC) of MOCA on 23.01.2018 and 09.05.2018 respectively. Meanwhile, Govt. of Maharashtra (GoM) granted administrative and financial approval for acquisition of 2367 Ha. of land for proposed airport on 09.05.2018. MADC is conducting Techno Economic Feasibility Study (TEFS) for this airport. GoM constituted SPV of CIDCO, MADC, MIDC & PMRDA to generate fund for land acquisition of proposed airport. Govt of India has listed this project in National Infrastructure Pipe line (NIP) and it is being continuously monitored.
However, upon initiating land acquisition procedure at site 1A, it is revealed that most of the land is irrigated agriculture land and hence, local villages are strongly opposing land acquisition for this Greenfield airport. The opposition has reached to such an extent that land acquisition may not be possible.
As a remedy to this, a new location within about 10 km distance from existing approved site for proposed airport is identified near villages Rise-Pise. This new location has less undulations, relatively barren land and few residents which will minimize opposition from local villagers. This new location is very close to site No. 5, already studied by AAI while granting approval to site 1A for proposed Greenfield Airport & named Site 5A. Citing advantages of this new location, GoM has directed to submit revised proposals to concerned Ministries in Central Government, for this site for Greenfield Airport. MADC is accordingly, taking suitable action in this regard.
