By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: With an objective to reduce the burden on the State Government exchequer, IIM, Shillong is planning to develop a regional sustainable airport infrastructure building model under PPP mode.
IIM is contemplating to rope in private and corporate sectors for overall interest and growth of the Northeastern region and nation as a whole.
The institute is also making an attempt to showcase NER with viable airport infrastructure building projects by tapping the domain expertise of Air force officers and market opportunities arising out of 12th Plan where the Centre is envisaging 50 per cent of the investment under PPP model.
“For providing connectivity to regions hitherto not served by commercial flights, it is necessary to expand the network of air services by setting up new airports. Some of the State Governments have already taken steps for setting up Greenfield airports,” an IIM statement said.
While citing an example that in the past Cochin, Hyderabad and Bangalore where Greenfield airports have been commissioned with the active support and participation of the respective state governments, the institute said the policy relating to setting up of Greenfield airports has since been liberalized by the Central Government and several new projects are being planned in different states.
Even though air connectivity has shown interesting trends with Union Government reserving 10 per cent capacity to NER by all domestic airline companies, the instituted pointed out that this has created an air traffic jam in Guwahati airport with inadequate aircraft handling facilities at the peak time of 11 am to 3 pm on all days.
The institute observed that the airport sector has been witnessing significant interest from both domestic as well as foreign investors following the policy initiatives taken by the Central Government to promote Public Private Partnerships (PPP) on Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) basis.