Land acquisition proposal for NCR’s second airport at Jewar submitted to UP CM

The land acquisition process for the Jewar international airport, the second in the NCR, is likely to begin at this month end for early November with the administration in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Budh Nagar submitting the final proposal to the Uttar Pradesh chief minister’s office, an official said.

The state government is expected to start acquiring land by end of October or beginning of November, an administration official said.

“As per procedure, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath will first approve the social impact assessment (SIA) report and the process of land acquisition will begin soon after, district magistrate BN Singh said.

On September 25, Uttar Pradesh chief secretary Anup Chandra Pandey had approved the SIA, put forth at a meeting in Lucknow.

In the first phase, the state government will acquire 1,257 hectares of land from six villages along the 165-km-long Yamuna expressway.

Earlier, the plan was to acquire 1,441 hectares of land from eight villages, including Rohi, Parohi, Banwaribas, Ramner, Dayanatpur, Kishorpur, Mukimpur Shivara and Ranhera. However, the district administration excluded Kishorpur and Mukimpur Shivara villages from the first phase of land acquisition.

According to suggestions made by the state government, the consultant for the airport project, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) India, and other officials are studying the modalities of the concession agreement prepared by the Centre’s planning department.

A concession agreement is a grant of rights, land or property by a government, local authority, corporation, individual or other legal entity.

“The PwC is revising the concession agreement. Once the state government approves the agreement modalities, the process of selection of a developer for the project will start,” a senior official said.

Once the proposal is notified, officials said, the focus will be on the rehabilitation plan for around 2,200 families, whose houses will be relocated. “The process of taking consent from farmers has been done in the most transparent and democratic way. We have sent our proposal after completing all the required formalities as per law,” Singh said.

“Several agencies, including the micro small medium enterprise association (MSMEA) of Noida, are coming forward to help us in the rehabilitation process. Builders, industrialists and other interested entrepreneurs will help in providing jobs, healthcare facilities to the families, who are giving their land for the airport project,” he added.

On the whole, 5,000 hectares of land is required for the entire project, the estimated budget for which is Rs15,000- ₹20,000 crore.