Airport makeover misses deadline

Calcutta: Calcutta airport’s modernisation project is set to start in September and finish one year behind schedule.
Civil aviation ministry officials in Delhi today said it would take 30 months to complete the Rs 2,000-crore project.
“The revised target date for the new integrated terminal building to become operational is January 2011,” a senior official said from Delhi.
The earlier deadline was January 2010.
Work on the project, originally scheduled to start in January, got delayed because of red tape, said sources in the ministry.
Differences of opinion between the Planning Commission and the civil aviation ministry had delayed the project’s formal approval.
The ministry gave the Airports Authority of India (AAI) the go-ahead to select a company to implement the project before the cabinet committee cleared it formally.
A Thai-Indian consortium has emerged the lowest bidder. ITD of Thailand, which was involved in building the Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok, and its Indian partner ITD CEM have quoted around Rs 2,000 crore.
An AAI official said the integrated international and domestic terminal building would be constructed first. The extension of the secondary runway to 3,239m and the construction of a new taxiway capable of handling A380 aircraft will be taken up next.
05/07/08 Telegraph

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Categories: Airports Jul 2008