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Sunday , 24 March 2024

NSCBI Airport being modernized

By August 2011, Kolkata would be the proud owner of a state-of-the-art airport – Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport (NSCBI). The existing airport is being modernised as a world class airport with improved infrastructure and increased capacity and better facilities for passengers. As gateway to Eastern India, the airport faced immense traffic rush to and from ASEAN countries and had exhausted its capacity in 2007 itself. While the existing Domestic Terminal Building handled nearly seven million passengers as against its capacity of 4.06, the International Terminal handled approximately 1.20 million passengers against its capacity of 0.88 million in 2009-10.

To upgrade the airport’s capacity to handle the increased load of air-traffic, the Airport Authority of India (AAI) decided to go in for its modernisation along with adding an Integrated Passenger Terminal. “The new Integrated Terminal building will accommodate additional 20 million pax per annum. From the operational point of view, the secondary runway has been extended which will also have Instrument Landing System to facilitate 24-hour-operation similar to primary runway. 11 additional parking bays, including one bay for A-380 aircraft, have been constructed. More additional taxi-ways have also been added for effective utilisation of both the runways,” says R Srinivasan, Airport Director.

Spread over an area of 1,80,000 square metres, the all new airport will have 104 check-in counters, 22 immigration counters each at arrival and departure area of international wing, 25 security gates with frisking booths, 15 conveyor belts, six customs’ counters, 18 aerobridges, 27 elevators, 16 escalators and 13 travelators. There will also be an underground car park with a capacity of up to 2500 cars. The infrastructure will also include inline x-ray and many IT-based solutions. Besides, facilities such as retiring rooms, state-of-the-art duty free shop and restaurant, VIP rooms shall also be provided in the new terminal.

The modernisation work is being carried out by ITD-ITD Cem JV, a consortium of Italian Thai Development Public Company Limited and ITD Cementation India Limited. ITD has to its credit the Suvarnabhumi International Airport at Bangkok, considered to be one of the best airports in the world, as also Mandalay International Airport, Myanmar, Don Muang (Bangkok) International Terminal Expansion and Ahmedabad Airport.

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