The Housing and Urban Development Corporation (Hudco) has agreed to extend another trenche of loan to the Cochin International Airport Ltd which has decided to expand the airport being built 31 kms from Kochi in Kerala.
The project management has decided to advance a part of the works scheduled for phase II to phase I of the project. Accordingly, the length of the runway and size of the terminal building of the Rs 288.69 crore project is being increased.
The additional cost is Rs 46.31 crore. Hudco which is the main lender to the project, has accepted a proposal from the project management to advance an additional Rs 38.31 crore. It had earlier lent Rs 98 crore to meet the debt requirement in phase I which was estimated at Rs 163.26 crores.
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The new loan will be advanced at an interest rate of 15.5 per cent for a 10-year term. The project will pay only the interest component of the loan during the construction phase. Once the airport becomes operational in mid-1999, it will have to pay the interest and repay the principal for the remaining stretch of 10 years.
The project is being built by a group of Gulf-based non-resident Indians, a consortium of banks and the state government of Kerala.
The Kerala chief minister is the ex-officio chairman of the company and the chief secretary in Kerala government is on the board which also had a Kerala-cadre IAS officer as managing director.
Initially, the project management had decided to build the airport in two phases, with the Phase I costing Rs 163 crores and phase II costing Rs 127 crore.