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Mandi Airport
Mandi Airport is a proposed greenfield airport to be built at Nag Chala[1] in Mandi District in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The airport will be built on a total of 698 acres.[2] The Airports Authority of India (AAI) gave its clearance for the airport after visiting the site in May 2018.[3] In August 2019, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur requested the Fifteenth Finance Commission for a special purpose grant of Rs 2,000 crore towards construction of the airport for operation of wide-body aircraft. The AAI completed its Obstacle Limitation Surfaces survey for the project site in August 2019.[1] The Ministry of Civil Aviation gave in-principle approval for the execution of the project with the help of the AAI in October 2019.[4] In January 2020, AAI signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Himachal Pradesh Government to build and operate the airport through a Joint Venture Company. The airport will have a unidirectional runway, suitable for operation of aircraft up to ATR 72 initially.[5] WAPCOS has been appointed as project consultant and has floated tenders for environmental impact assessment for the project[6] following a site visit in July 2020.[7] The Himachal Pradesh government had first proposed an international greenfield airport in the Balh valley of Mandi district to the Union Civil Aviation ministry in 2008.[8] Since the existing airports in the state at Kullu, Kangra and Shimla were only capable of handling small aircraft, the State government was keen to develop a bigger airport at Sundar Nagar that could cater to bigger aircraft and had offered land for the project.[9] References
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