With changing political dynamics at the Centre, Bahujan Samajwati Party chief Mayawati’s pet airport project at Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh seems to have gone into deep freeze.

Sources in the civil aviation ministry said that the Rs 5,000 crore greenfield Taj International Aviation Hub (TIAH) in Jewar — first conceptualised in 2001 by the then Mayawati government — was now unlikely to be pushed ahead anytime soon. “The proposal for the airport is lying with the law ministry for

more than four months now. It is unlikely that it would be approved now, given the current political situation,” sources in the civil aviation ministry said.

The law ministry has been examining the Greater Noida airport proposal ever since a Group of Ministers (GoM) was constituted in February. The GoM was to look into implicit and explicit agreements signed with the operators of the Delhi’s IGI airport, located just 70 km away, and assess if the proposed new airport would violate any contractual obligations.

To that end, the two ministries were to jointly submit a studied view on technical and legal aspects. While the civil aviation ministry had forwarded a favourable assessment to the Law Ministry well over four months ago, the latter is yet to come back with a view. “We have reminded the law ministry to submit their paper, but there does not seem to be a sense of urgency now,” the source said.

The proposed Greater Noida airport was expected to handle around 3.9 million passengers annually by 2011-12, or roughly one-fifth of the current traffic at the New Delhi airport, according to estimates by the state government. It would also seek to derive a significant share of revenues through shopping malls, hotels, a cargo hub, an aviation academy and residential complexes as part of the airport project.

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