Bareilly airport to get Rs 33 crore passengers’ lounge; AAI floats tender

BAREILLY: The project director of Airports Authority of India (AAI), Rajeev Kulshreshtha on Friday said that they had floated a tender for the passengers’ lounge at Nathnagari civil enclave terminal that would come up at a cost of Rs 33 crore. “In September, the bids will be opened. Meanwhile, we are constructing a temporary lounge at a cost of Rs 3 crore at the site as flights are likely to start from here by the year end,” he said.
AAI officials said that they have already started the construction work at the terminal by dividing the area into two parts.“It will take around eight months to build the passengers’ lounge. Soon, the tender for a Rs 20 crore taxiway will also be floated. We have been given one year’s time from May 2018 to complete the construction work. Flights will start sometime in November or December. In the first phase, we will be constructing a temporary lounge near the boundary wall of the Indian Air Force’s Trishul airbase,” Singh said.
AAI officials said that for passengers’ lounge, taxiway and other facilities, it would take a great amount of soil to level up the site spread across 14 hectares. They said that due to heavy rains, the levelling work they had done over the past one month has been destroyed.
Notably, AAI is yet to get nod from the defence ministry to construct a taxiway that will connect the commercial airport with the runway. “We sent a letter along with all the requisite papers to the defence ministry on July 14. Around 52 metres of IAF airbase’s boundary wall will have to be razed for that,” Singh said. On August 13, divisional commissioner PV Jaganmohan wrote a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office in this regard.
The Nathnagari terminal is being constructed at Pilibhit road under the regional connectivity scheme (RCS) to link small towns. According to sources in the civil aviation department of UP government, two flights of Jet Airways will be started once the airport gets operational.