PM to inaugurate second international airport terminal in Gujarat
13 October, Vadodara
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate on October 22, the newly built state-of-the-art international terminal of Vadodara airport, the second largest in Gujarat.
The new terminal will become the second operational ‘green building’ airport in the country after Chandigarh and the first of its kind in Gujarat.
The new Vadodara terminal, once operational, will increase the combined passenger handling capacity of this airport by almost four folds and add up many modern amenities.
Project in-charge and GM (Engineering) of the Airports Authority of India Narendra K Shukla told UNI that the airport with its new terminal in operation will become only the second green one in the country 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.
The terminal has been built at an estimated investment of Rs 160 crore by the engineering wing of the AAI and has a capacity to handle 500 domestic and 200 international passengers during peak hours. It has come up on 17,500 square meter land adjoining the existing domestic terminal which has a total area of 7,500 square meter of which only around 4,500 square meter is used as passengers area.
He said the existing domestic terminal in Harni locality of the city though is distinct from other airports due to its mix of Gujarati and architectural styles complete with domes on the roof, can handle only around 250 passengers during peak hours currently. The terminal is small and cannot handle large numbers of passengers but it had seen the footfall of more than nine lakh travelers in the last fiscal and was rated good in passenger management.
The new terminal will have many modern facilities like airbridges (2), lifts (5) and escalators (4), a big food court as an extension and a much bigger parking lot.