Domain-b.com: The government envisages investments to the tune of $30 billion in the country's airport infrastructure over the next 10 years as more and more airports open up for modernisation and new airports are developed. The government has already invested $10 billion in developing airport infrastructure during the 10th and 11th five-year plans, civil aviation secretary S N A Zaidi said, adding that the airports developed under the public-private partnership model currently handle 60 per cent of the passenger traffic in the country. ''The government plans to invest $30 billion in the next 10 years,'' Zaidi said while addressing the 3rd International Aviation Economics Conference in New Delhi. The number of operational airports in the country stood at 82 in 2010 against 50 in 2000. Passenger handling capacity at airports also increased from 66 million to 235 million during the period. The volume of air cargo has gone up to 4.5 million tonnes in 2010, from 3 million tonnes in 2002 - a remarkable growth in the face of the downturn in global economy in 2008-09. Zaidi said, in the first phase, connectivity to metro cities are being established while in the second phase, the focus would be on connecting metros to tier II and tier III cities. The number of passengers is likely to go up to 260 million and cargo by five million tonnes by 2020. This necessitates development of more airports and improvements in airports infrastructure in the country, Zaidi said. At present, there are around 127 airports in the country and these would be developed in the second phase. Some new airports may also come up while some metros would have a second airport, he said. These would require investments of around Rs67,000 crore, he said. India continues to be a small player in the international arena. The trips per capita in India still remain very low (0.04) even by the standards of other emerging markets, such as China (0.15), Brazil (0.25) and Malaysia (0.54). China's domestic traffic is 5 times the size of India's despite having a population just 15 per cent larger. The upside potential therefore, remains huge, driven by strong economic and demographic fundamentals. India has 1 aircraft for every 2.89 million population, which is miniscule in comparison to 1.14 million in china, 0.96 of Indonesia, 0.89 in the Philippines and 0.63 in Brazil. Out of the 32,000 helicopters in the world, India has merely 210 while out of 15,750 freighter carriers globally, India has just 12. Source: domain-b.com
