The Ministry wants to create a massive integrated terminal at Kolkata spread out across 2.5 km. It also plans to vacate and close down the existing international terminal in the second phase of modernisation. The domestic terminal will continue to be used and its front elevation, sources said, will be re-developed. In Phase III, the domestic terminal will also be replaced with a brand new structure.

“While we have all environmental clearances and so on for the project and have already started the tendering process, we are unable to award them and start work on the airport’s upgradation because we still do not have the government’s go-ahead. That is largely because the Plan Panel is convinced that we will end up overbuilding. We, however, feel that as per our traffic projections, we will require a bigger terminal area,” said a senior Ministry official.

The ministry hopes that it will be able to start work on the Rs 2,000-crore Phase I of the Kolkata airport modernisation project by July this year.

At the Chennai airport, while the Rs 1800-crore first-phase modernisation has been delayed by over four months now largely due to major land acquisition issues, the Planning Commission has the same set of reservations.

“We have been trying to expedite the Chennai airport case but acquisition of some 136 acres in the area is still a problem. While the state has invoked an emergency clause for land acquisition, it’s also tangled in courts. However, we have been assured that by August or September we should be able to start work there. Still, the Plan Panel has sizing issues, they feel we are planning too big an airport.”

... contd.