Kolkata airport: An essay in delay

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).
06/11/11 Abhishek Law/Business Line

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Categories: airports Nov 2011