Five years after the proposal for an international airport in Puri, the abode of Lord Jagannath, the ambitious project is set for a fresh start as the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has agreed to take up its development.

 The proposed greenfield airport, dubbed as Shree Jagannath International Airport (SJIA) to be developed on an area of around 1,164.72 acres, including 68.82 acres of revenue forest land, recently received the environmental and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearances by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).

The airport was earlier estimated to cost around ₹5,631 crore and being pursued by the Odisha government under a public-private partnership (PPP) model. It was envisaged as being operated by private entities. Fairfax, Adani Airports and GMR had shown interest during the 2024 tender process for the first phase development.

Official sources said the environment ministry granted the final environmental clearance on September 30, removing a major regulatory hurdle. In April, the project had secured in-principle Stage-I clearance from the Centre for diversion of forest land.

The DPR will determine the fresh investment requirement based on the airport’s phased development, technical specifications, traffic projections, land and infrastructure requirements and prevailing construction costs. It will subsequently require approval from the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) before the project moves into execution. The project has been appraised as a Category-A airport project.

The proposed airport will come up at Sipasarubali in Brahmagiri tehsil of Puri district, close to the Bay of Bengal and connected to the Puri-Satapada-Bhubaneswar corridor through national highway 316 (NH 316). The site is around 50 km from Bhubaneswar’s Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) by air and around 67 km by road.

The international airport at Puri was necessitated since it is being developed into a world-class heritage city and BPIA reached its design capacity limit. Former Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik initiated the proposal for the airport by writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 1, 2021.

The MoCA has already granted site clearance, followed by in-principle approval in 2025. The first phase has been designed for a traffic capacity of 4.6 million passengers per annum, with infrastructure capable of handling a broad mix of aircraft ranging from ATR-72 and Q-400 turboprops to A320, A321, A350 and Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.

The proposed airport footprint covers 874.41 acres of government land, 221.48 acres of private land and 68.82 acres of revenue forest land. Of the private land, around 153.37 acres, will be acquired from Sipasarubali village and another 68.11 acres from Sandhapur village. “While the government land has already been handed over for the project, land acquisition is ongoing for the private land,” Rajput said.

The project does not entail displacement of habitations, although 60 project-affected families whose agricultural land falls within the airport site will be affected by land acquisition. Compensation will be provided under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.

Phase-I of the airport envisages a 3,700-m long and 45-m wide Code-E runway, equipped with Category-I instrument landing system (ILS), approach lighting and other visual aids. The airport will have a 1,500 m by 275 m apron designed for 35 Code-C aircraft, with capacity to accommodate up to 11 Code-E aircraft. Two link taxiways and parallel end-to-end taxiways have also been proposed.

A 54,000 square metre (sq m) integrated terminal building has also been proposed, with a peak handling capacity of 1,337 passengers. The airport complex will also include an ATC-cum-technical building of 3,063 sq m, a 7,000 sq m cargo terminal, a 3,000 sq m administrative building and a 5,000 sq m utilities service block.

The infrastructure plan includes a Category-9 fire station, isolation bay, parking facilities for 800 cars,100 two-wheelers and eight buses, besides airline-support infrastructure comprising r maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) facilities, ground support equipment maintenance, flight catering and a fuel farm. Besides, communication and navigation systems like an air traffic control tower, meteorological equipment, instrument landing system, airport surveillance radar, surface movement radar and DVOR/DME (Doppler very high frequency omnidirectional range/ distance measuring equipment) systems have also been proposed.