Cost of Delhi airport upgrade rises to Rs 8,900 cr

New Delhi: The cost of completion of the first phase of Delhi airport modernisation has almost doubled to Rs 8,900 crore, the Chief Development Officer, Mr I.P. Rao, said on Monday.

Briefing newspersons here, Mr Rao said that the increase in the project cost was mainly on account of redoing the existing terminal to handle the growth in passenger traffic and creation of a metro rail link.

A consortium led by the GMR Group won the mandate to modernise Delhi airport in January 2006. The consortium includes Fraport, the promoters of Frankfurt airport, and Airports Authority of India (AAI).

“When we took over the project the airport was handling around 22 million passengers annually, now we are handling around 40 million passengers. This has seen us build a new terminal which was not planned earlier. Besides, the GMR Group has committed about Rs 350 crore towards the metro project,” Mr Rao said.

The Chief Operating Officer of Delhi International Airport Ltd, Mr Andrew Harrison, added that the GMR Group was working towards completing the project on time. “There are challenges to be overcome but we are confident of surpassing these,” he added.

By 2010, not only would the refurbishment of the existing terminal be completed, but a new integrated terminal would also be ready. “The new terminal would handle about 37 million passengers annually while about 5 million passengers would be handled at the refurbished terminal,” Mr Rao said.

Proposed Noida airport

Talking on the proposed airport in Noida, Mr Harrison said while the GMR Group was not against the new project, the timing of the new airport may not be appropriate as the Delhi airport has the capacity to handle 100 million passengers per annum. The airport passenger handling capacity would be saturated in 2026 when it would be capable of handling 100 million travellers annually.

Meeting with airlines

Meanwhile, Delhi airport is to meet with the airlines next week to ensure that passengers are not troubled by fog during the forthcoming winter. “The idea is to talk with the airline and see that their operating crew is able to operate to fog affected airports like Delhi,” Mr Harrison said.

Officials were non-committal on how it would over come objections raised by the Ministry of Civil Aviation over revenue share for new hotels planned at the airport.