The Prime Minister’s Office is coordinating with the stakeholders including the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Indian Air Force, Delhi International Airport Limited and GMR for setting up the state-of-the-art facility at the IGI airport in New Delhi, sources said.
The government is creating a new 28-acre facility at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi for housing the new Boeing 777 aircraft which will be used for ferrying the VVIPs including the president, vice-president, and prime minister, said sources.
The Prime Minister’s Office is coordinating with the stakeholders including the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Indian Air Force, Delhi International Airport Limited and GMR for setting up the state-of-the-art facility at the IGI airport.
The land on which it is planned to be built was earlier held by the government of India and then handed over to the private developers for infrastructure development.
The aircraft would be flown by the Indian Air Force pilots who are getting trained by Air India which already operates the Boeing 777 in its fleet.
The two planes are expected to arrive in India by middle of the next year. Indian Air Force officials have made several visits to the Boeing facility where they get regularly briefed about the facilities being created in the aircraft and the progress made in this regard.
Sources said that due to the presence of the sophisticated equipment, including missile protection suites and ownership by the Indian Air Force, the planes will have military classification.
In a notification to the Congress this year, the American Defence Security Cooperation Agency said that the missile defence system deal, worth $190 million, would facilitate a more robust capability into areas of increased missile threats.
The new aircraft is being developed in a Boeing facility in the US where it is being fitted with the latest self-protection systems against missile and other attacks, sources said.
Prasanta Patnaik