Bhogapuram International Airport is inaugurated by PM Modi

The Alluri Sitarama Raju International Airport in Bhogapuram, Andhra Pradesh’s Vizianagaram district, was officially opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday. Commercial airline operations are scheduled to start on August 17.

The greenfield airport, which was built by the GMR Group for about Rs 5,000 crore, will initially be able to accommodate six million people a year, with plans to increase that number to forty million. After Jewar airport in Uttar Pradesh, which started commercial services on June 15, the Bhogapuram facility is the second greenfield airport in India to start operations this year.

The airport was built by GMR Visakhapatnam International Airport Ltd (GVIAL) using the Design, Build, Finance, Operate, and Transfer (DBFOT) framework under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model. It was finished many months ahead of time.

The airport, which occupies 2,200 acres, is a component of a bigger integrated project that covers 2,703.26 acres. In addition to the airport, the proposal consists of a 136.63-acre EduCity, a 500-acre aviation hub, an aviation university, commercial development, residential zones, approach roads, and extensive airside infrastructure.

The Andhra Pradesh government has presented the airport as a transformative asset for the North Andhra region that will increase industrial growth, jobs, exports, skill development, and research, positioning it as more than just an infrastructure project.

With a grand plan to increase capacity to 40 million people yearly in later phases, the airport is initially built to serve six million passengers annually. As a division of the GMR Group, GMR Airports Ltd. now runs six airports and has built three new airports in Hyderabad, Goa, and Bhogapuram.

“We are confident that the airport will emerge as a major gateway for India’s eastern corridor, driving investment, employment and regional prosperity for decades to come,” GMR Airports Ltd Business Chairman G B S Raju.

The prime minister was briefed on the airport’s salient characteristics by Union Civil Aviation Minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu during the inauguration. Modi is also expected to inaugurate and lay the foundation stone for development projects totalling about Rs 18,000 crore throughout Andhra Pradesh later in the day.ssion.