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Centre approves Rs 1,542 cr modernisation plan for Kolkata airport

Joy Roy Choudhary - Kolkata

The Union Government has recently cleared a Rs 1,542-crore modernisation programme for Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata. It is slated to have an upgraded terminal, latest navigation and communication aids and an extended runway. The Centre has asked the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to execute the job over three years.

According to union civil aviation minister Praful Patel, the infrastructure committee, headed by the Prime Minister, has given its formal approval to the modernisation plan of Kolkata airport and work will start in the next few months. "We will move the Public Investment Board to get clearance and then start work", he added.

It is learnt that the programme will be completed in three phases and is estimated to cost Rs. 5,000 crore. On completion of the first phase by 2009-10, the airport will have new domestic and international terminals, an extended runway and sophisticated Communication and Navigation System (CNS). The revamped airport would be able to handle 20 million passengers compared with five million now.

The new domestic terminal, which should cost about Rs 700 crore, will be able to accommodate 15 million travellers, up from 4.06 million at present. Revamping the international terminal will cost Rs 600 crore, giving it the capacity to handle five million travellers, up from the current 8.2 lakh. Sources inform that

the design of the new terminal, made by globally renowned Aeroport de Paris is likely to be approved soon. The French company runs airports like Orly, Roissy-Charle de Gaule and Le Bourget in France.

Of the total Rs 1,542 crore earmarked for the job, Rs 1,300 crore will be spent on the terminals, Rs 100 crore on the runway and a cargo complex, and the remaining Rs 100 crore on CNS. The money will be pumped in by AAI. "I do not envisage any borrowings at present," Patel said.

The union ministry of civil aviation and the planning commission were pushing for the modernisation to be given to a subsidiary of the AAI, but the Prime Minister went with the suggestion of the West Bengal Government that the job should go to the AAI.