Vadodara:Come October 22 and the Civil Airport at Vadodara will see the much-awaited inauguration of its newly built state-of-the-art international terminal.

This will be only the second operational ‘Green building’ airport in the country after Chandigarh and the first of its kind in Gujarat.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the terminal which will increase the combined passenger handling capacity of this second largest airport of Gujarat (Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, Ahmedabad being the largest) by almost four fold and also add up many modern amenities.

Project In-charge of the new terminal and GM (Engineering) of the Airport Authority of India (AAI- which looks after the airport operations here) Narendra K Shukla said that the airport with its new terminal in operation will become only the second Green one (highly environment sensitive) in the country after Chandigarh rated by Green Ratings of International Habitat Assessment (GRIHA), the highest national rating system for green buildings conceived by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and developed jointly with the ministry of new and renewable energy.

It has been built at an estimated investment of Rs 160 crores by the engineering wing of the AAI and has a capacity to handle 500 domestic and 200 international passengers during peak hours. Against this the existing Harni domestic terminal can handle only around 250 passengers during peak hours currently. The footfall at Harni terminal was at over 9 lakh travelers in the last fiscal.

The new airport complex has come up on 17,500 square meter land adjoining the existing domestic terminal which has a total area of 7500 square meter of which only around 4500 sq mt is used as passengers area.

The new terminal will have many modern facilities like airbridges (2) (Bureau of civil Aviation Security of India clearing still awaited), lifts (5) and escalators (4), a big food court as an extension and a much bigger parking lot which will be able to park more than double the number of vehicles that the older one.

The foundation of the new terminal project was laid in February 2009 by the then union civil aviation minister. However only some token work began after long wait of around two years in May 2011. The project saw actual speeding up only after the anointment of Mr Modi as the Prime Minister. The PMO has shown keen interest in this project and has been monitoring the progress of project throughout since.

Though the airport will see the inauguration of its international terminal this month making it ‘theoretically’ only the second international airport of Gujarat after Ahmedabad yet for it to be ‘truly’ international it will have to wait for at least another couple of months (By when it is expected that a direct flight to a nearby international destination will start from here.)

Airport Director Sono Marandi said that the airport currently handles 17 domestic flights to destinations like Mumbai, Delhi, Goa and Bangalore operated by Air India, Jet Airways, Jet Connect, Indigo and Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates. It does not operate any direct international flight as yet and has not got any proposal of such flights as of now. Air India operates only a pair of flight (to and fro Delhi), Jet Airways operates four (two and fro Mumbai), Jet Connect one (to and fro Mumbai), Eithad operates three (two and fro Mumbai which further goes to gulf countries) and Indigo maximum 8 (one each for to and fro Bangalore and Goa, two to and fro Mumbai and 4 to and fro Delhi).

‘We can’t fly directly to far away countries like the UK, the Us, Canada etc owing to runway constraints yet such flights for the close-by foreign destinations like Singapore, Dubai, Bangkok etc are possible. But it has not yet materialized. It may take another couple of months after the inauguration of the international terminal for start of a direct flight abroad,’ the Director said.

The length of the existing runway is only 8100 feet and it has not been extended despite the construction of the new international terminal owing to unavailability of further land and is not large-enough for landing of the big aircraft like Boeing 744 which are used for long distance international flights. Currently it can handle medium range flier aircraft like Airbus-320 and Boeing-737etc which are good for close by foreign destinations, he added.

The Airport Director also said that there was not going to be any further addition to the existing number of domestic flights immediately after the inauguration of the international terminal.

Meanwhile the project in-charge Mr Shukla said that as the terminal was integrated with the domestic one it will be be fully utilized till the addition of direct international flights from here. Passenger handling will become much easier and boarding a plain will be smoother for the travelers. The new terminal is designed in such a flexible way that its use for domestic and international operations purposes can be varied as per needs.

He also sound more positive with regard to the possible future operation of long distance international flights from the airport. ‘Despite the runway being shorter for the bigger commercial aircraft, giant military aircraft of the IAF like IL 76 which is called Gajraj for its massive size lands here.In futue such technology might be used by the bigger commercial planes and these might land here,” he said.

Talking about the construction of the new terminal and its specialties, Mr Shukla said, ‘ the building is very unique steel structure and Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete or GFRC has also been used in it. We had kept in mind right from the beginning to make the building quite environment friendly and added several environment sensitive features in it like- energy efficient windows, high class sewerage treatment technology with no wastage of water at all, provision of rain water harvesting. We have designed it as per the Advance Building Management System, which will also have hi-tech security systems, energy saving cooling system, super sensitive fire safety alarm and automatic glass cleaning and over a dozen spacious check-in counters.”

The airport has no Cargo handling facility. Mr Marandi said that there was no plan to add one in the near future.

Meanwhile, the Airport officials are becoming busier than usual with passage of each day for flawless preparations of the inauguration ceremony and overseeing the last leg of finishing and approvals. Amid the hectic round of meetings the Airport Director said that the the Prime Minister’s visit has been confirmed and preparations for the event were in full swing.

Mr Modi apart from inaugurating the terminal will also participate in another event here during his visit in which around 8,000 differently able people (Divyags) from Vadodara and Chhota Udepur will be given the aid kits or equipment. The event is to be organized by the department of empowerment of persons with disabilities of the union ministry for social justice and empowerment along with Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation of India (ALIMCO) which had organized one such function in Navsari on the occasion of the birthday of the Prime Minister on September 17 this year.

The inauguration of the international terminal here is taking place amid the expedited development of the aviation sector in the state. Many intra-state flights to inter connect the important cities of Gujarat with the assistance of the state government are coming up. The state government, with an aim to boost regional air connectivity by developing small airports and airstrips in the state thereby attracting more and more domestic airlines, had on September 1 this year signed an MoU with the Ministry of Civil Aviation under the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS).

As per the agreement 11 airports/airstrips in Gujarat Bhavnagar, Bhuj, Jamnagar, Surat, Porbandar, Mehsana, Mandvi, Amreli, Kandla, Keshod and Deesa are to be developed.

Notably the aviation activity in the state was started in the year 1973 by a separate division in G.A.I.C. which in the beginning, was started with a purpose to help the farmers by aerial spraying on various crops like; sugar cane, cotton, ground-nut, tuvar, etc. by helicopter and fixed wing Aircraft. In order to further strengthen the aviation sector in Gujarat, the state government created the Civil Aviation Department in 2002 and formed a company called Gujarat State Aviation Infrastructure Company (GUJSAIL) to facilitate investment into new facilities and services.

DeshGujarat