Bhogapuram Airport

The proposal for setting up a greenfield airport was planned during the N. Chandrababu Naidu government in 1997 under the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh state at Visakhapatnam. Alternate sites like Sabbavaram, Atchutapuram and Koruprolu were also considered.[1] The Airports Authority of India (AAI) gave its technical approval of the project site in June, 2015.[2] The request for proposals (RFP) for the project was issued in July 2016, and AAI and the GMR Group submitted their technical and financial bids in August 2017.[3]

The current Visakhapatnam Airport is a civil enclave on a naval airfield, while the Navy proposed the flying slots for civilians in the existing airport and hence suffers from constraints.[4]

The airport's foundation stone was laid by government of Andhra Pradesh, on 14 February 2019[5][6] with an initial planning of developing the mega aerotropolis with estimating land of 5,311 acres, comprising Bhogapuram Airport, cargo facilities, MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) facility and an aviation academy. The government has acquired 2,703 acres of land because of land agitation from locals,[7] including 1,673 acres of government land allotted for the project.[8]

However, the successive YSRCP government fixed 2,200 acres to GMR Group and reduce the land for the purpose while keeping aside 500 acres of land under the control of state government with no official reasons mentioned.[8] The airport would be constructed on a final 2,200-acre site in and around Bhogapuram that serves Visakhapatnam city. It would be built by GMR Visakhapatnam International Airport Limited (GVIAL), a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) owned by the GMR group that was set up in June 2020.[9] The project would be taken up in the public–private partnership (PPP) mode with the state holding a stake in the form of land holdings.[10]

An in-principle approval has been granted for the project, that would be developed by the government of Andhra Pradesh under a PPP basis.[11] A pre-bid meeting was held in August 2018, for which 13 developers showed interest in developing this airport. The government finally approved GMR group,[12] who also operates the international airports, Indira Gandhi International Airport at New Delhi and Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Hyderabad.

The airport's construction is expected to start by 2021-end, and is expected to be completed by December 2023. Upon completion of phase 1, the terminal handling capacity is expected to be 6.3 million passengers per year, and then rising to 18 million passengers per year on completion of phase 2.