LUCKNOW: The three heliports, being planned in the tourists' towns of Uttar Pradesh, are going to be developed and handed over to private players.
The government has taken a decision to lease out the land in Prayagraj, Mathura and Agra, where basic civil works to construct the heliports has been completed, to private agencies or investors. Though initially the Public Works Department was asked to construct and commission the heliports, owing to the delayed timeline of execution and cost escalation the cabinet on April 19 took a decision to go ahead with operations of the heliports under the public-private-partnership model.
"The heliports in Agra and Mathura are almost complete and majority of the external and internal development works have been completed. The one in Prayagraj will also be ready soon," said a senior PWD officer.
Bids to commence operations in the Agra and Mathura based heliports have been floated, but in the absence of financial feasibility the private players refrained from participating in the process. However, the tourism directorate revised one of the crucial conditions recently to make the operations lucrative for private agencies. "Heliports in Agra and Mathura offer promising returns as tourists from Delhi and the national capital region (NCR) will prefer using the air taxi over road transport to save time. To further increase the feasibility we accepted the suggestion of interested agencies and will allow use of the land for aviation academy and aero-sports purposes," said a senior officer from the tourism directorate.
The fresh proposals of the interested companies are going to be evaluated in the first week of August, the officer added.
Aviation expert and founder secretary-general of the MRO association Pulak Sen said, "Noida Authority is also planning to set up a heliport. The catchment area of Noida airport is also going to be the same more or less. Still if the operators keep reasonable fee structures, many individuals and families, who book a private taxi, may prefer air taxi instead to save time."
The heliport in Agra is coming next to the Lucknow - Agra Expressway over 2.27 hectare plot, while the one in Mathura has come up over 5hectare land in Pentha village in Govardhan. In Prayagraj the heliport is being built in Kydganj.
The government had approved heliports in the three cities in March 2018, but work got halted due to the pandemic and citing increased cost of construction material and manpower the PWD department sought more funds from the tourist directorate.
