Deccan Aviation, which runs budget airline Air Deccan, plans to take a stake in a consortium that will help identify and build low-cost airports in India, the Business Standard daily said on Friday. The company is in the “final stages” of forming a four member consortium, which would include three corporates with infrastructure development interests, the paper said quoting Deccan’s Executive Chairman G.R. Gopinath.

Deccan officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

“Our mission is to achieve equitable development,” the paper quoted him as saying. “Development has to extend to the fringes of the country…. Connectivity plays a crucial role in this,” Gopinath said

A low cost airport can be built for less than 400 million rupees with smaller terminals and by doing away with frills such as plush buses to ferry passengers, the paper said.

States such as Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Orissa have started identifying land for low-cost airports and the Tata and GMR groups have expressed interest in developing no-frills airport, the reposrt said.
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