UNION CABINET NOD FOR NEW AIRPORT TERMINAL IN LUCKNOW

LUCKNOW: The Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport here is all set to become bigger and swankier in the next three years with the union cabinet on Wednesday approving a proposal to build new terminal buildings at the Lucknow, Chennai and Guwahati airports at an estimated cost of over Rs 5,000 crore.

The new terminal building at Lucknow will be built at a cost of Rs 1,232 crore and will be a major force multiplier towards UP’s growth, union civil aviation minister Suresh Prabhu tweeted.

The new integrated building will span 88,000 square metres. The existing facility covers 16,292 sq metres.

The new terminal building will raise annual capacity by 11 million domestic passengers from the current 2.6 milllion passengers, taking the overall capacity to 13.6 million passengers per annum.

It will cater to the passenger growth requirements up to 2030-31 as per a growth forecast, tweeted minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha.

The new terminal building in Lucknow is expected to become operational by December 2021, Airports Authority of India (AAI) chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra said, according to a PTI report from New Delhi.

The AAI is expected to start construction soon.

Passenger traffic at this airport has grown steadily during the last five years.

The new terminal will be able to handle 4,000 passengers during the peak hour.

The upcoming terminal will be built on the aero-city model having a well-defined area for hotels, tourism and commercial activities with the state-of-the-art facilities.

An AAI in Lucknow said, “This is a proud moment for Lucknow as work on the new modular integrated terminal with state-of-theart technology and world class facilities will start next month. All the preliminary work has been done.”