GMR lines up Rs 7000 cr for Delhi airport facelift

The GMR-led consortium, which is modernising the Delhi airport, will pump in Rs 7,000 crore to build an integrated airport for the national capital by March 2010 with a capacity to handle 37 million passengers a year.

For the time being, the consortium, to meet the surging traffic, will build a terminal near the existing domestic terminal in Delhi at an investment of Rs 400 crore with a passenger capacity of 10 million a year. The terminal with a built-up area of 75,000 square feet will be operational in 2008. This temporary terminal will be converted into a low-cost airline terminal in 2010 when the new airport comes into being.

"The interim airport terminal, which will be called 1C, will be linked to existing domestic arrival terminal and the terminal operated by Indian Airlines. Once the new airport becomes operational, this terminal complex will be converted into a low-cost airport, while the new building will be an integrated domestic and international airport," said Srinivas Bommidala, managing director, Delhi International Airport.

The existing 1B terminal, from where private carriers operate now, will be pulled down completely and a new cargo complex will occupy its space. Again, once the new airport becomes operational, the existing international terminal will also be discontinued.

It is expected that with the modernisation, the new terminal building will increase the capacity of the Delhi airport to over 45 million by 2010 from the present 16 million.

The work on the two new terminals will begin in January once the government approves the master plan submitted by the GMR consortium. The consortium will also build a new runway, with 4,400 meter length. The work on the new runway will start in March 2007 and is expected to be completed by 2008 March. This runway will have the capacity to handle super jumbos like Airbus A380. The Delhi airport will have two primary runways and one parallel runway.