New Pune international airport to come up at original site in Purandar: Devendra Fadnavis

“The new terminal building will serve the needs of Pune city for the next four to five years with an annual capacity of 9 million passengers per annum. However, it is important that the work for the new international airport progresses during this period. The airstrip at this airport is a defence airstrip and we need to have a separate airstrip for Pune through an international airport which will come up at Purandar,” Fadnavis said.

“The site chosen at Purandar had received all clearances from the Defence ministry. Later, the state government shifted the site by 20 km which was found not to be feasible. The new airport will hence come up at the old site in Purandar,” he added.

Ajit Pawar said the new terminal inaugurated on Sunday will take another month to become operational. “We have been told that the actual operations will commence after at least a month. We have requested the Airports’ Authority of India to finish the requisite work at the soonest and start operations from the new building on April 1. Don’t pull an April Fool’s on Pune residents, start the operations in April,” he said.

The late Pune MP Girish Bapat had taken special efforts to obtain land for this project from the defence authorities, Ajit added. The government is also following up on the pending project of runway extension which will open the Pune airport to large-bodied aircrafts, he said.