IGI runway tunnel waits for funds

New Delhi: Passengers looking forward to flying in and out of a world-class terminal (T3) at IGI Airport from July may have to bear with a long and tortuous crawl to the new facility. The government's ambitious plan to build a link road to T3 from near the domestic airport under IGI's main runway in time for the October Commonwealth Games is now seriously threatened by a delay in release of funds.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) had in mid-January asked the Delhi government to immediately release half the cost of the Rs 70-crore project so that Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) could begin preparatory work for the first of its kind under-runway tunnel road in India. While more than a month has passed, the money for this extremely critical connectivity link to T3 is nowhere on the radar. Now a worried AAI chairman V P Agrawal has written to Delhi's chief secretary Rakesh Mehta to expedite the release of funds so that the six-lane, toll-free tunnel road does not get delayed.
Mehta says that the fund has to come from the Union ministry of surface transport's central road fund and not the Delhi government's kitty. "We have written to the ministry to release the funds and give them to AAI. We'll remind them again to do it," Mehta said. Top AAI officials say they will not be able to ask DMRC to begin work till the money comes.
22/02/10 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: Airports Feb 2010