Tourism Breaking News
In a bid to improve and develop airport infrastructure to meet the growing traffic needs, Airports Authority of India (AAI) is taking up new development works at Lucknow, Deoghar and Allahabad airports. Apart from this, AAI will also develop a greenfield airport at Hirasar, Rajkot. AAI plans to construct new integrated passenger terminal building at Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport, Lucknow, with an estimated cost of Rs. 1230 crores resultant of the increasing passenger traffic during last five years. The new terminal will be able to handle 4000 passengers during peak hour and 6.35 million passengers per annum.
In addition, AAI will develop Deoghar airport in Jharkhand, to facilitate the joint use of civil operation up to Airbus-320 and DRDO operation up to C-130 type of aircraft. The work will be carried out at an estimated cost of Rs. 401.34 crore on fixed cost basis and Rs. 427.43 crore on completion cost basis. An MoU was signed between the Government of Jharkhand, DRDO and AAI in March, 2017. As per the MOU, there will be financial input to the tune of Rs. 50 crore by Govt. of Jharkhand, Rs. 200 crore by DRDO and balance cost to be funded by AAI. To meet the demand of increasing air travel in Allahabad, a new civil enclave at Allahabad will be developed by AAI at an estimated cost of Rs. 125.76 crores. The new terminal is to be made operational before the ‘Ardh Kumbh Mela’ to be held in January 2019.
AAI will also take up the work of development of greenfield airport at Hirasar, Rajkot in Gujrat on Build, Operate and Maintain basis. Govt. of Gujarat has provided the land free of cost and proposed the construction of new greenfield airport to meet the traffic demand potential of Saurashtra region matching the growth in economic activity and distinguished population profile having very high number i.e. 50 per cent of total NRIs of Gujarat from Saurashtra. The present airport doesn’t have the infrastructure to handle the growing traffic due to capacity constraint.
