Chandigarh January 11, 2011, 0:47 IST
The Airport Authority of India (AAI)’s project to bring up a new terminal building of the Chandigarh airport is not complete, despite a December 2010 deadline. When work on the project started on November 11, 2007, the completion deadline was set by the Planning Commission. Now sources are saying that it will be another four to five months before the project is complete.
The space constraints in the existing building have not allowed private to begin operating flight service. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said that international flights will also be possible from the new building once it is complete.
The existing building, which will be demolished once the new terminal is complete, can only handle 150 passengers at a time at present. Present flight operations are handled by major airlines including Jet Airways, Indian Airlines, Go Air and Kingfisher Airlines, providing 11 daily domestic flights.
Travel operators, who see delays in completion of the terminal building as an obstacle to passenger traffic growth at the airport, look forward to the project’s completion. One tour operator said that he is hopeful that the new terminal will attract both more domestic and more international flights.
The new terminal building, whose estimated total project cost is Rs 78 crore, will be able to handle 500 passengers at a time. The new terminal building will have modern conveniences for passengers, three aerobridges, a visual docking guidance system, closed-circuit televisions escalators, elevators, baggage conveyor belts and more. The entire building area of about 12,150 square metres will be fully air-conditioned.
Sources say that proposals to start weekly or bi-weekly international flights from and to the renovated terminal at Chandigarh airport have been made. Initially proposed service destinations include Dubai and West Asia, which will come into operation after the new terminal is complete. London, Vancouver and other European countries will be possible later additions to Chandigarh airport’s international flight service.
Chandigarh International Airport is also expected to come up as an extension of Chandigarh Airport, per a Memorandum of Understanding between AAI and Punjab Government. The proposed project, however, will take some years to complete. The Punjab government has already acquired 306 acres and 18 marla of land in Mohali and paid for it in full. Haryana, a 24.5 percent equal partner with Punjab in the airport, later contributed 50 percent of this cost to the project. AAI is the only other partner in the project and its share in the project covers the remaining 51 percent not belonging to either of the two states.
The upcoming airport is set to provide numerous amenities for passengers along with high quality infrastructure including cargo complex; maintenance bases for the aircrafts; parallel taxi track, parking stands for wide-bodied jets and hangers for flying club activities and runway extension, if required.