India to have 200-airports, 1.1bn air-passenger traffic by 2040: MoCA
What's the story
India's air passenger traffic is expected to grow six-fold to 1.1 billion and the number of operational airports to increase to around 200 by 2040, according to Ministry of Civil Aviation's (MoCA) vision document released at a summit in Mumbai today. India was the seventh largest aviation market with 187 million passengers traveling to, from and within India in the financial year 2017-18.
Details
India would soon have its aircraft leasing industry, says MoCA
The 'Vision 2040 for the Civil Aviation Industry in India' document also said that the country would have its own aircraft leasing industry, with tax structure and repossession processes "being "equally or more attractive than those in leading global jurisdictions". "India has one of the largest aircraft order books currently with pending deliveries of over 1,000 aircraft," the document from the MoCA said.
Predictions
Number of commercial planes to increase to 2,359 by 2040
The fleet of commercial planes is likely to rise to 2,359 in March'40 from 622 in March'18. "India's top-31 cities may have two airports, and Delhi and Mumbai three each. The incremental land requirement is expected to be around 1,50,000 acre and the capital investment (not including cost of acquiring land) is expected to be around $40-50 billion (Rs. 2.84L-3.55L crore)," the document said.
Plans
Government might establish funds to support low-traffic airports initially
As per the document, the government may consider establishing a Nabh Nirman Fund with a starting corpus of around $2 billion (Rs. 14,217 crore) to support low-traffic airports in their initial phases. The concept of land pooling may be used to keep land acquisition costs low and to provide land owners with high value developed plots in the vicinity of the airport, it added.