Noida Authority looks for company to build a heliport, finds 1 taker, again

NOIDA: After floating the global tender for the second time in a year, the Noida Authority has again received a lone bid from a private company for the heliport project.
Officials, however. said as a proposal to consider even a single bidder for the construction of the proposed heliport in Sector 151A was earlier passed by the Authority, the project could be handed over to this company if it qualifies in the financial and technical bid rounds.
However, TOI has learnt that the Authority is mulling whether to open this single bid or not. Officials said that certain queries were raised by CEO Ritu Maheshwari and an updated file was sent to her for a final decision in the matter. The name of the company would be revealed once the bid is opened.
This is the second time a global tender was issued by the Authority. In March 2022 too, a single bidder applied for the Authority’s global tender for the construction of the proposed heliport. The bid was finally rejected as the company had failed to qualify for the technical bid round.
The Authority subsequently made some changes to the bid and floated the tender again in December last year. A pre-bid meeting was also held and several companies that participated made suggestions.
Aimed at providing helicopter operations from Noida to Delhi’s IGI Airport and the upcoming Noida International Airport in Jewar and other hilly regions, the heliport project was envisaged in 2020. An agreement was signed between Noida and RITES Ltd in August 2020 for providing consultancy services for the project development.
The heliport is proposed to come up on 9.3 acres of land in Sector 151A at a cost of Rs 43 crore. As the heliport site is located adjacent to the under-construction golf course, it will also facilitate the movement of VIPs and executives, heads of companies and foreign delegates.
The development of the heliport is also intended to support the tourism, medical, security and emergency services in Noida and Greater Noida.
The catchment area of the heliport stretches up to 500km from the site and includes cities like Mathura, Agra, Vaishno Devi Temple (Katra), Jaisalmer, Mount Abu and Ujjain, among others. Helicopters like Bell 412 (12 seaters) and MI 172, the largest chopper having 26 seats, could be operated from here.