The Union minister for civil aviation today said that there were no issues with the Andal Aerotropolis project and that it would be the first airport in the country to be developed under the greenfield airports policy.
Talking on the sidelines of the foundation stone laying ceremony of the Kolkata airport modernisation project, civil aviation minister, Praful Patel, said that the steering committe on greenfield aiports has cleared the project.
Bengal Aerotropolis Projects Ltd (BAPL) is the promoter of the first such airport city project in the country in Burdwan district in association with Singapore's Changi International Airports. The fate of the project became uncertain after state-owned coal major Coal India limited wrote to the coal ministry saying that about 2,300 million tons of superior quality non-coking coal was likely to be blocked if the project was set up at the proposed site. Patel,however, claimed today that the project would be on track. "An airport had become a necessity in the Durgapur-Asansol industrial belt and we have already started the land acquisition process.", said Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, chief minister of West Bengal.
Earlier in the day, on the sidelines of WBIDC event, commerce and industry secretary, Sabysachi Sen said that the land surrounding the airport area of the project was sacrosanct but other components of the project which is also a city project, could be changed and study was being done for the purpose.
Meanwhile, the civil aviation ministry has approved a package of around Rs12,000 crore for modernisation of 55 non-metro airports by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) slated to be completed by end of 2009.
In addition, the AAI would take up the work on modernisation of the Kolkata and Chennai airports. Patel said that there were 35 major non-metro airports, and work had begun in many of them. "Apart from these, work was in different stages of completion in another 20 non-major airports.A world-class airport would be inaugurated in Srinagar next month.", he added.
His ministry would also look into the matter of convincing an airline to start flights to Coochbehar in northern West Bengal, where the state government had already completed constructing the runway. "It could happen in a month's time.", Patel said.
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AAI had taken up the work on the modernisation project of the Kolkata airport in November, work would be completed in 30 months’ time. "A Bangkok-based consortia has been awarded the work on the basis of an international bidding. Work on the cargo terminal costing around Rs56 crore is complete already.", informed K Ramalingam, chairman, AAI.
The modernisation project would include developing a new integrated passenger terminal over 1,80,000 square meters with a peak capacity of 7,525 passengers, besides extension of the second runway up to 3,200 meters, a new control tower, and a technical block among other amenities like city-side connectivity and multi-layer car park. The estimated project cost is close to Rs2,000 crore. AAI would meet the fund requirement from internal accruals, and not borrow any sum. The Kolkata airport now handled 30 million passengers annually.
On being asked about a possible bailout package for the airlines in a financial squeeze, the minister ruled out any such possibility saying that the government could consider indirect assistance in the form of tax sops, but direct financial assistance was not at all an option.