Parliament Clears Air on Surat Airport Expansion: No Additional Land Needed by AAI

Surat, Gujarat – In a significant development that brings clarity to the long-standing confusion over land reservations for Surat Airport, the Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Murlidhar Mohol, on Monday officially stated in the Rajya Sabha that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has no requirement for additional land at Surat Airport.

The statement was made in response to an unstarred question (No. 17) raised by Rajya Sabha MP Shaktisinh Gohil regarding the status of land reserved and de-reserved for modernization and development of Surat Airport.

According to the Minister’s written reply:

• AAI prepares master plans based on projected passenger growth and infrastructure needs. Land requirements are communicated to state governments, but as of now, AAI has not requested any further land for Surat Airport development. As per the National Civil Aviation Policy, 2016, the onus of providing land—free of cost and free from encumbrances—lies with the state government.Matters related to land reservation, de-reservation, and re-allotment to original landowners rest solely with the concerned state government.

This parliamentary clarification puts a definitive end to the long-standing confusion and blame game between AAI and the Government of Gujarat (GoG) regarding land requirements at Surat Airport. For years, conflicting statements led to uncertainty over the so-called “Master Plan 2035” for Surat Airport.

While AAI consistently maintained that the Gujarat government had independently reserved land without any formal request from AAI, the state government claimed that the AAI required land to develop a second parallel runway of 3,810 meters, and extend the existing runway to the same length.

This contradiction led to a deadlock, with hundreds of farmers and landowners kept in limbo, as large parcels of land were blocked in the name of airport expansion—without any actual development taking place.

It is noteworthy that land was first reserved for airport expansion in SUDA’s 2004 master plan, which expired in 2014. However, land continued to be reserved in subsequent planning documents, including the Master Plan 2035 and the Draft KUDA Plan 2039, without execution or compensation.

This has been seen by many as a form of injustice, denying farmers the right to develop or sell their own land. Experts point out that no law permits land to be held in reserved status indefinitely without acquisition or proper use.

With this official communication now on parliamentary record, there is growing public and legal pressure on the Gujarat Urban Development Department and Khajod Urban Development Authority (KUDA) to immediately remove the airport-related land reservations from the Draft Plan 2039.

It is expected that the final version of KUDA’s Development Plan 2039 will be revised to exclude the T1 Aerodrome Complex reservation, finally relieving landowners and farmers of the uncertainty and mental burden they have faced for nearly two decades.

This development marks a critical step forward in planning transparency, restoring land rights to rightful owners, and ensuring that infrastructure expansion aligns with real, not speculative, requirements.

Interestingly, despite no formal land acquisition or expansion plans, AAI had been granting building height permissions for high-rise structures in Surat based on the assumptions of Master Plan 2035, which included two runways of 3810 meters.

 In 2016, AAI even instructed SUDA to impose height restrictions in the funnel zones of both proposed runways. The NOCAS (No Objection Certificate Application System) was issuing height clearances accordingly, limiting development in large areas of the city. However, with this official clarification that AAI does not require any additional land, the entire foundation of those height restrictions now stands invalid. 

AAI will now be expected to immediately revise or scrap NOCAS restrictions based on 3810-meter runway assumptions. Notably, AAI also did not conduct any OLS (Obstacle Limitation Surface) surveys between 2016 and 2022 for either the existing or proposed parallel runways. This development comes as a welcome relief to builders and developers in Surat, as it opens the door for greater permissible building heights, particularly in areas that were earlier restricted under the now-defunct parallel runway plan.