The CM also highlighted how UP would benefit from Union Budget initiatives, including high-speed rail corridors and semiconductor push.
The Noida International Airport (NIA) is ready for inauguration, said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday, and is due to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi this month.
“The airport is completely ready. The Aerodrome Licence for the airport is in the final stages… It is my belief that we would be able to get this airport inaugurated by the Prime Minister this month,” said the CM.
The NIA is a greenfield project being developed in the Jewar area of Gautam Buddha Nagar district under a public-private partnership (PPP) model. The first phase of the project, spread over around 1,300 hectares, was initially scheduled to begin operations in September 2024.
Commissioned in 2021 to lighten the existing passenger load on Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, which handled nearly 8 crore fliers in 2024, Jewar airport is expected to handle 1.2 crore passengers annually in the first phase. Officials said its passenger capacity in phases two and three is expected to rise to 3 crore and 5 crore, respectively.
For now, under the Rs 6,500-crore phase one of the airport operations, Jewar will have one runway and one terminal, though officials said there are plans for six runways and four terminals in all.
‘UP will benefit from Budget’
Stating that the state budget will be presented this month, Adityanath said the Union Budget will help achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2047 vision of a ‘Viksit Bharat’ as well as ‘Viksit Uttar Pradesh’.
Hitting out at the Opposition, especially the Samajwadi Party, for targeting the Budget, Adityanath said its claim of ‘PDA (Pichara, Dalit, Alpasankyak)’ is a mere excuse while working for the ‘pariwar (family)’ is their actual target. On the other hand, he said, PM Modi has presented a vision that treats the country’s entire population as a family.
“Akhir yeh karya unhone apne samay mein kyon nahi kiya… PDA tab bhi raha hoga… Lekin PDA ki charcha tab kyon nahi ki… Tab parivar ki chinta kyon thi… PDA to bahana hai. Asli nishana… Lakshya kewal pariwar hai (Why didn’t they carry out this action during their own time? PDA must have existed then as well. So why was PDA not talked about at that time? Why was there concern for the family then? PDA is just an excuse. The real target — the sole objective — is the family,” said the CM.
“Those who are visionless and have no plans for the future will talk of meaningless things,” he added.
He also said Uttar Pradesh would benefit hugely from the Budget.
Claiming that the state has the maximum MSMEs in the country, he said it would benefit from the Rs 10,000 crore set aside for the sector.
On the assistance for the semi-conductor and electronic manufacturing sectors in the Budget, the CM highlighted that the state accounts for 55% of the country’s mobile manufacturing and 60% of its electronic component manufacturing.
CM Aditynath said UP will also benefit from announcements related to sports manufacturing, considering the state has two important leather clusters — Agra and Kanpur.
The Budget also proposed seven high-speed rail corridors, of which two will be from Varanasi: one connecting the ancient holy city with Delhi, and the other to Siliguri in West Bengal. Tourism in the state also got a boost, with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing Hastinapur in West UP and Sarnath near Varanasi to be among 15 archeological sites to be developed across the country.
Referring to these, the CM also said with UP emerging as the “new tourism hub”, the two high-speed rail corridors as well as upcoming archaeological destinations in the state would help boost it further.
“An announcement has also been made for five All India Institute of Ayurveda Sciences in the Union Budget. We had already demanded such an institute of Varanasi and are hopeful that it would get one, considering that it is the birth place of Bhagwan Dhanvantri,” claimed Adityanath.