Kolkata airport is horrible, and some people call a “traveller's nightmare” which is likely to continue for some time because the modernisation of the airport has already been delayed by over a year.
The nearly Rs 2,500-crore modernisation programme, which is being carried out by the Thai-Indian consortium of ITD-ITD Cementation to bring the airport at par with international standards had an initial completion date of March 2011. The completion date was first revised to October 2011 and now it has been further revised to March 2012 — a delay of a year.
Said Union Minister of State for Urban Development, Mr Sougata Roy, who also heads the Airport Advisory Committee: “We are hopeful of making the new terminal operational by end of March 2012. This will include the terminal building and other infrastructure additions, such as flyover and entry and exit points.”
However, though officials state that 85 per cent of the project is complete, experts are of the view that December 2012 would be a more realistic time frame for the completion of the modernisation process.
The modernisation programme includes a number of infrastructural changes and once fully operational, the new integrated terminal will cater to an annual increased capacity of nearly 20 million people. At the moment, the annual footfalls at the airport are nearly 9 million — almost double the existing capacity of the airport (the airport has a passenger handling capacity of 5 million).
Cost escalation
One of the major concerns right now is escalation in costs. While the initial cost of the modernisation programme was pegged at nearly Rs 2,000 core, it was later revised to Rs 2,300 crore. According to senior officials this figure now stands at Rs 2,500 crore. “A part of the increase in cost includes the amount to be spent for constructing a new flyover. It was not there in the initial modernisation programme,” a senior airport official said.
The construction of a flyover was added to the project to avoid snarls among airport bound traffic. Since all the approach roads to the area are congested, the proposal for building a flyover was cleared and this is being constructed by the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
There have been other glitches as well. For example, the extension of the secondary runway was delayed after questions were raised about the shifting of a mosque located inside the premises. Hence, AAI had to carry out expansion on the northern and southern sides of the runway without shifting the mosque.
Construction of the new ATC tower too has been postponed for the time being. According to officials since automation of the ATC has been carried out at the existing terminal building, setting up a new tower at a cost of around Rs 300 crore will be done in the second phase of modernisation of the airport.
Further, a proposal to redirect the overhead railway lines has been mooted in the last meeting of the Airport Advisory Committee. According to Mr Roy the overhead line was interfering with air traffic movement. “We are currently awaiting a proposal from the concerned authorities on redirecting the railway lines,” Mr Roy said.
This will perhaps lead to further delays in the completion of the modernisation process and to Kolkata's chance of getting a world class airport.