The Hindu Business Line : AAI lines up schemes to boost traffic

THE Airport Authority of India (AAI) has before it various schemes to boost air cargo traffic, both for international and domestic destinations. However, it will be long before these schemes (at least the majority of them) take off.

One of them is to set up an integrated cargo terminal complete with cold storage facility at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at Kolkata at an estimated cost of Rs 52 crore. The status of the project is that agencies have just been shortlisted. The construction work is likely to start soon.

It might be noted the country's first air cargo complex was set up at Kolkata as early as in 1975 followed by Mumbai (1977), Chennai (1978) and Delhi (1986). Yet with a throughput of 27,025 tonnes in 2002-03 as compared with Mumbai's 2,24,068 tonnes, Delhi's 1,97,432 tonnes and Cehnnai's 1,06,836 tonnes, the Kolkata's share in the country's total traffic of 5,55,361 tonnes in the same year was a meagrer 4.87 per cent.

Three of the other important projects will be located at Mumbai and one at Chennai. At Mumbai, there are proposal for Phase III export cargo terminal (Rs 48 crore) for which only site selection has been completed, relocation of FACT warehousing (Rs 14.33 crore) which is still at a drawing board stage and setting up of an international courier terminal (Rs 6.50 crore) which is at tendering stage. The Chennai scheme presupposes setting up of an integrated cargo terminal (Rs 6.55 crore), but it is also still at a drawing board stage.

The most important of the domestic schemes will be the setting up of a multimodal international passenger-cum-cargo complex at Nagpur (Rs 2,581 crore). The project is being conceptualised by the State Government. There are also schemes for integrated cargo terminals at Coimbatore (Rs 4.50 crore), Amritsar (Rs 4.97 crore), Patna ( Rs 6 crore) and Port Blair (Rs 4 crore). Only the Amritsar project is nearing completion while the one proposed at Coimbatore is still at the planning stage. The Patna project will be a joint venture between AAI and the Bihar Government while the one to be set up at Port Blair will be entirely a local government project.

There are also proposals for setting up an interim air cargo terminal at Jammu at an estimated cost of Rs 1 crore or so and a cargo complex at Srinagar. While the Jammu scheme is awaiting custodianship, the one for Srinagar is still at a conceptual stage at the State Government level.