The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday approved construction of a greenfield airport in Lalitpur on the UP-Madhya Pradesh border.
The Yogi Adityanath government has decided to develop an airport in Lalitpur district, an adjoining district of Madhya Pradesh.
The decision was taken in the cabinet meeting chaired by the chief minister.
After the meeting, Cabinet Minister Sidharth Nath Singh said that the government had taken this decision in view of the Drug Park being set up in Lalitpur and the Defence Industrial Corridor being developed in Bundelkhand.
He said that there was an air strip of World War II era in Lalitpur which would be developed as a green field airport.
In the first phase, this airport will be prepared for landing small aircraft and later it will be developed as an international airport.
For the establishment of the airport in Lalitpur, a total of 91.773 hectares of land will be purchased from two villages there. The total cost of the land is Rs 86.65 crore. The cabinet has also approved stamp duty of Rs 76.75 lakh on purchase of land.
The defence ministry has 12.79 hectares of land, which the state government will take for the project and in return give the same amount of land of the village society to the defence ministry.
State Civil Aviation Minister Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi said that the government had taken an important decision for the development of Bundelkhand on getting approval to build an airport in Lalitpur in the cabinet meeting.
He said the airstrip would be developed as an airport which will give impetus to tourism and industrial development.
Even before this, the construction of airports in Chitrakoot, Jhansi, Sonbhadra are underway in the state.