Greater Noida Authority gets DGCA nod for heliport project

The Greater Noida Authority has received necessary approvals from the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for its heliport project.

“We will now seek environment clearances from the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MOEF) and security clearances from Ministry of Home Affairs before starting work at the site on this 25-acre heliport project,” Deepak Agarwal, CEO of the Authority, was quoted having said in media reports.

The Rs 50-crore heliport will be constructed across 25 acres in Safipur village, along the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway near the Gautam Budh University. An additional 15 acres of land has been reserved for the future expansion of the aviation project, said officials.

 “We aim to develop Delhi-NCR’s largest heliport on a public-private-partnership model. Once we get environment and security clearances, we will select a private agency that will manage and run the facility through a global tender,” said Agarwal.

As per the plans, helicopter flights will be available for neighbouring cities. Officials said that they aim to provide helicopter flights at an economical tariff.

The proposed heliport will have the facilities for parking, garage for maintenance and scheduled commercial flights managed by a private agency.

“We hope that work will be started at the heliport by the end of 2016. It will have the facility to park around 20 helicopters at a time. We aim to provide cheap travel to religious places like Kedarnath. Corporate houses, realtors and politicians, who need helicopters during elections, can also use the facility by paying,” said another official.