BW Explains: Are Greenfield Airports Promoting Green Objectives?
Infrastructural development causes and costs serious environmental loss. The construction of airports requires huge runways, multiple terminals, lounges, hangars and control towers. Therefore the building of such huge airports takes away a major portion of land, cutting off trees and influencing the habitat of several animals and birds. However, coming across a term like ‘Greenfield Airports’ in the aviation sector indicates environmental protection along with the building of airports. As the name suggests, do the greenfield airports brought in to save the environment?
What is the environmental significance of building greenfield airports? BW Explains looks at all these questions.
What Is Greenfield Airport?
Unlike building on land that has already any structure, greenfield airports are planned to construct on undeveloped grounds and these projects are initiated from scratch. For developing any airport project, authorities do not need to demolish and destroy any building. As per the requirement of airport infrastructure, the green and vast field tick mark all of them.
Why Government Is Expanding Greenfield Airports?
After the sharp dip in the demand for air travel during the Covid19, the industry witnessed a bounce back. Air traffic in India and across the world experiencing a boom, that will constantly increase in the coming days. As per the data released by the Directorate General Of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in March, India’s domestic air passenger traffic grew 56.82 per cent to 1.20 crore in February over the same month in 2022. Dealing with constantly increasing air traffic, The government of India has accorded an ‘In-principle approval’ for the establishment of 21 Greenfield Airports across the country.
According to other data given by International Air Transport Association (IATA), India is expected to overtake China and the United States as the world’s third-largest air passenger market in the next 10 years, by 2030.
The latest greenfield airport has recently been inaugurated in Goa as Manohar International Airport. Apart from this, Pakyong (Sikkim), Kannur (Kerela), Kalaburagi (Karnataka), Sindhudurg (Maharashtra), Kushinagar (Uttar Pradesh), Orvakal (Andhra Pradesh) and Donyi Polo (Arunachal Pradesh) airports have been operationalised in the country.
According to the data given by the Airport Authority of India, it has estimated a cost of Rs 4713.49 crore in 2019-20, Rs 4350 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 3724.34 crore in 2021-22 to construct greenfield airports in the country.
Is There Any Green Objective Behind Greenfield Airports?
Unlike the name, greenfield airports do not promote environmental health and work on a sustainable path. Greenfield Airports are built on green & vast fields that have no prior built structure. Instead of being environment friendly, the greenfield airports are creating environmental challenges. Building on the greenfield, it harms the natural habitat of several living creatures. In building Jewar Airport, which spread across 5,000 hectares,
The blackbuck, sarus crane and peafowl are among the species living around this region that are being affected by this new project. The collaborated team of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA), a wildlife expert has been assigned to look after the wildlife as the project is heading.
WII also conducted a two-month survey of the area in 2019, with its observations on the species found there, the report directly indicated the need for their conservation and the measures that need to be taken for their conservation.
