With The Dholera International Airport Company Ltd (DIACL) deciding to fast-track it late last month, decks have been cleared for work on the Rs 2,000-crore greenfield airport project, which is a part of the Gujarat government’s Dholera Special Investment Region (Dholera SIR), located 100 km south west of Ahmedabad. The Dholera International Airport, with an annual capacity of 50 million passengers once fully operational, would decongest the saturated Ahmedabad airport, catering to the regions of Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Nadiad, Kheda and Anand in Gujarat.
Hurdles in the way of the project, delayed since 2012, were removed after reconstitution of DIACL’s board that saw the Airports Authority of India (AAI) picking up a majority 51% stake in the company, with the Gujarat government owning 33% stake and the National Industrial Corridor Development and Implementation Trust (NICDIT) the remaining 16%—the Dholera SIR, a greenfield city being built over an area of 922 sq km, is the largest investment node on the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC).
