Rajgurunagar airport plan: Post survey, hunt for right site

With the preliminary techno-feasibility study by the Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) finding the site for airstrips at Rajgurunagar "non-feasible", the district administration is scouting for alternate sites in the same area.

"With the earlier site being highly undulating terrain, we are looking for plain areas. We are hoping to get back to the MADC soon with the alternate site in the same area," said senior officials in the district administration.

MADC had in its preliminary techno-feasibility study of the proposed site of the airstrips found it "non-feasible." It stated that the approach funnel within the inner horizontal circle at the site shown for developing airstrips at Rajgurunagar has has natural obstructions that cannot be removed and hence was not feasible.

The MADC had demanded a total of 2,120 hectares for development of the area while two parallel runways, each of 4 km, were to be set up on 1,200 hectares. The district administration had provided MADC with 1,100 hectares for the airstrips but the mountainous and undulating terrain was not found suitable for the purpose.

Last year, the administration had identified 1,650 hectares and it's only this year that 1,100 hectares for the airstrips were shown to MADC for the techno-feasibility study.

MADC surveyed the site on August 7 and submitted the report last month. MADC officials are awaiting a response from the district administration.

The state government had in August cleared Rs 200 crore for the first phase. The officials at MADC, however, mentioned they have not been released any funds yet. "We might require Rs 7-8 lakh for the techno-feasibility study,'' said MADC officials. For the earlier site at Chakan, the government had declared Rs 200 crore as seed capital of which the government had released Rs 96 crore for conducting the study.

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