Andhra Pradesh Government starts Dagadarthi airport works

Nellore: The YSRCP government finally resumed works on the Greenfield Airport at Dagadarthi by inviting tenders for the Detailed Project Report. The Infrastructure Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (Incap) invited tenders for commercial operations of passenger and cargo aircraft. The last date for filing bids was November 24 and the date for opening them is December 2.

The district administration earmarked 3,407.77 acre land under Damavaram, Dagadarthi, Velupodu , and K Kourugunta villages for the airport in 2013, and subsequently, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) had expressed its nod for initial acquisition of 614 acre and the Union government had accorded clearance in December 2015. Government of India enterprise RITES prepared the feasibility study also.

The airport would be a low-cost, no-frills airport under the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) mode and will be developed at a cost of Rs 368 crore. The government had spent around Rs 20 crore on compensation to the farmers who provided lands. But the Principal Secretary of Infrastructure and Investments Ajay Jain informed in 2017 that they had dropped the proposal owing to the huge compensation demanded by the farmers.

The TDP government had inked an MoU with the SCL Turbo, a consortium of Nellore International Airport Private Limited, for developing the airport and a cargo hub and subsequently there was a concession agreement in 2018.

Last August, minister for industries and IT Mekapati Goutham Reddy announced that the AAI is going to construct the airport and the state government had expressed interest in handing over lands to the aviation ministry for proceeding with the plans. But the proposal failed to gain momentum.

Freshly, the INCAP has decided to carry out the process for selection of a reputed technical consultant for preparing the DPR which will cover data collection, geotechnical and topographic surveys, and investigations, infrastructure assessment, detailed design for airside works, city side works, technical assistance, etc. Interestingly, these have been completed earlier by the RITES before its nod from the AAI.