Development runs deep—but devotion runs deeper. So an ancient mosque on a tiny patch of 1,200 square feet of land right next to a runway has forced a redrawing of the entire Rs 2,000-crore map to upgrade Kolkata airport.

An extra 25,000 square metres has to be acquired, crores have to be spent on building a detour and several high-rise buildings have to be compensated because they have to knock off their top floors in line with the new plan.

The project, cleared yesterday by the Public Investment Board under the ministry of Finance is all set to go to the Cabinet—after a very public spat between Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and the Planning Commission over delays—and envisages extension of the second runway at the Kolkata airport.

The Kolkata airport has two runways: the main runway, 3,627m, that carries bulk of the air traffic, and a shorter one, 2,399 m, which is inadequate to service large aircraft, and so needs to be extended by another 440 m to the north.

But this is exactly where the 117-year old Bankra mosque — where on an average 30 people offer prayers each day under tight security — lies, less than 100 feet from the north end of the shorter runway, Also, the walls of the mosque cannot withstand vibrations caused by aircraft landing or taking off.

“We have tried to negotiate with the masjid committee numerous times. We have also tried to give them land outside the port and offered to create a replica of the masjid elsewhere but to no avail,” says SPS Bakshi, Director (Projects), Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport. Result: the Airports Authority of India has decided to extend the runway towards the southern side.

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