Hosur airport development cannot happen till 2033, says Centre citing the 150-km clause

With the Tamil Nadu government aggressively pursuing to develop a greenfield airport at Hosur, neighbouring Bengaluru, the Centre on Thursday again clarified that as per the present clause it was within 150 km of the Bengaluru airport and that till 2033 a new airport cannot be developed.

Union Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu in a reply to Member of Parliament VS Matheswaran on development of Hosur airport said the existing airstrip at Hosur is owned and operated by Taneja Aerospace and Aviation Limited as a private airstrip.

In the first round of bidding under Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) - UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik), Turbo Aviation Private Limited submitted a bid for the RCS route Chennai-Hosur-Chennai.

However, the route was not awarded to the airline owing to the provisions of the Concession Agreement between the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Bangalore International Airport Ltd. This provides that no new or existing airports (except for Mysore and Hassan airports and that too for domestic purposes only) are permitted to be developed as, or improved or upgraded into, a domestic airport/international airport within an aerial distance of 150 km of the Bengaluru Airport before the twenty-fifth anniversary of its opening date, which was May 24, 2008.

Thus, Hosur Airport was excluded from the UDAN document for the subsequent rounds of bidding, the minister said.

Recent media reports said that the Airports Authority of India had evaluated five locations, including the existing Hosur airstrip of TAAL for the proposed airport at Hosur. A draft report was also submitted in this regard.

In June 2024, the Tamil Nadu government announced plans to build a greenfield international airport in Hosur on nearly 2,000 acres. It is already planning to build a greenfield airport at Parandur in Kanchipuram district with an investment of ₹20,000 crore, for which the process of land acquisition is going on.

The Hosur airport will have the capacity to annually handle around 30 million passengers, Chief Minister MK Stalin then announced in the State Assembly; the Parandur airport is designed to handle 100 million passengers.

Hosur has been attracting investments in the field of electronics and electric vehicles in the last few years. The State Government is implementing a long-term plan to develop the fast-growing town of Hosur as an important economic growth centre of Tamil Nadu by providing modern infrastructure there. An airport at Hosur is necessary for the overall socio-economic development of not only Hosur but also Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri, Stalin said.

On expanding the Salem airport, the minister said that at present it is suitable for daytime operation of ATR-72 type aircraft under Visual Flight Rules.

For expansion of Salem Airport for operation of A-321 type of aircraft with runway length of 3,200 m, the Airports Authority of India has projected a land requirement of 460 acres in three phases to the Tamil Nadu Government. In the first phase, 177 acres of land have been requested to enable Instrument Flight Rules operations for ATR-72 type aircraft.

As per the National Civil Aviation Policy, 2016, the responsibility for providing land for airport development, lies with the respective State Government. The timeline for completion of the airport projects depends upon many factors such as land acquisition, availability of mandatory clearances and financial closure, the minister said.