The Greenfield International Airport or Hirasar Airport in Rajkot, Gujarat is going to be operational by August this year. The District Magistrate of Rajkot said that once the project is completed, the Prime Minister's dream of 'Hawai Chappal to Airplane' seems to be coming true. He said that this airport, located 30 km from Rajkot, is being built in four phases in an area of 1,032 hectares. It will have a total of 14 parking stands with a passenger terminal area of 23,000 square meters.

Operations will start by August-September

Rajkot District Magistrate Arun Mahesh Babu said that the airport is likely to be operational by August or September. The construction work is going on very fast here. He said that about 85 per cent of the runway work has been completed. In fact, in November 2021, 1.05 crore people traveled by plane, an increase of 64 percent on an annual basis. Whereas in October this number was around 90 lakh and in September it was 70 lakh.

25 airports will go into private hands

According to the government's plan, 25 airports in the country will go into private hands in the next three years. These airports will be selected on the basis of annual traffic and proposed capital expenditure plan. These airports include Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur, Dehradun, Chennai, Ranchi, Patna etc. According to the plan, Calicut, Nagpur, Madurai, Coimbatore, Surat, Jodhpur, Patna and Ranchi airports are to be sold in 2022-23. This will be followed by privatization of Vijayawada, Vadodara, Tirupati, Chennai, Bhopal and Hubli airports in 2023-24. Whereas Imphal, Udaipur, Agartala, Dehradun and Rajahmundry airports will go into private hands last.