India Infrastructure Finance Company Limited (IIFCL) has sanctioned loans worth Rs 8,800 crore for airports and civil aviation infrastructure development in the country, its Managing Director PR Jaishankar has said.

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The government has an ambitious target to develop the civil aviation sector in the country, and to realise the dream, huge investment is required, he noted.

"So far, the IIFCL has sanctioned loans of about Rs 8,800 crore with the disbursement of around Rs 4,000 crore for the development of airport projects," he told PTI.

The company is one of the major financiers of airports in India and has supported airports with a total project outlay of about Rs 74,000 crore, he said, adding that IIFCL is present in almost all major airports of the country.

Over the past few years, India has seen massive growth in the airport sector with increasing investments from both government and private sector, mainly due to a rising proportion of middle-income households, infrastructure build-up at leading airports and supportive policy framework.

As a result of expansion, the passenger handling capacity is expected to increase from the existing 350 million per annum to 500 million per annum by the end of the current financial year and 2 billion by 2047.

IIFCL will continue to extend its support to develop world-class airport infrastructure in India and explore opportunities in funding the greenfield airport projects, as well as maintenance, repairs and overhaul (MRO) facilities under the PPP mode by way of term loan, subscription to bonds, refinancing, or credit enhancement etc, Jaishankar said.

Highlighting the importance of the airport sector, Jaishankar said it holds the potential to provide a huge positive impact on the economy, with an economic multiplier of 3.1 and an employment multiplier of 6.

To meet the growing demand for air travel in India, he said, it has become imperative to increase the capacity of airport infrastructure. According to the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), about Rs 91,000 crore capex has been envisaged for the civil aviation sector in the five years till FY25.

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