New airport terminal to be delayed

KOLKATA: The city's track record of delays in major projects remains unbroken. After Metro Railways and flyovers, the modernization of Kolkata airport has spun out of schedule with the project deadline long over. Airports Authority of India (AAI) will now incur further cost and time over-runs. And passengers will be forced to bear with poor services at the current terminal with AAI pleading it can do little given its space constraints.

Already delayed by eight months, Airports Authority of India (AAI) chairman VP Agrawal said the completion deadline for the integrated passenger terminal could be pushed back by another two months. But that may still prove elusive with an impending work-to-rule agitation by a section of employees set to derail the deadline by several months more.

In purely monetary terms, Rs 1,700 crore or three-fourth of the funds has been spent. That means, a quarter of work is yet to be done. The project that was to be completed in 30 months is already in its 36th month and may finally get over in 42-48 months.

The initial completion target of the under-construction integrated terminal with an annual capacity of 20 million passengers was July 2011 but was pushed back to October 2011, followed by December 2011 and March 2012. On Wednesday, Agrawal announced a revised deadline of June 2012. But if the AAI engineers engaged in the project work for only eight hours from Monday, it could push the completion deadline back by a further four-five months.

The 60 AAI engineers working on the project are among 600 officers cadre employees

countrywide who plan to embark upon the work-to-rule agitation to force the management to address an HR issue that has been hanging fire since 1995 when international and domestic divisions were merged to form AAI. Of the 600 aggrieved employees, 120 are from Kolkata.

"At this crucial juncture when the tempo of work is at its peak, any agitation will adversely affect the project. We are aware of the anomaly and are trying to address it by creating 200 new posts. I hope officials will acknowledge our effort and recognize the need to join forces so that this prestigious project is completed on time," Agrawal said.

Following the disinvestment of Delhi and Mumbai airport and private green field airports at Bangalore and Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai are the only two metro airports in AAI fold. Of the two, the Kolkata airport project is by far the most prestigious one that AAI has undertaken in the country.

It was sustained pressure from the officers' association and employees' union at Kolkata airport as well as the Left in 2005-06 that prevented former civil aviation minister Praful Patel from divesting government's stake in the airport like it had done in Delhi and Mumbai. The face-off between Patel and Left led to a stalemate for two years.

Finally, at the foundation stone laying ceremony in December 2008, Patel had remarked that unions in Bengal needed to improve work culture and display discipline to build and operate a world-class airport. By then, the project cost had escalated from an initial estimate of Rs 1,800 crore to Rs 2,300 crore. To prevent the project cost from shooting up by a further Rs 300 crore, the new air traffic control tower was dropped from the plan.

Patel words are proving prophetic with the project deadline being continually revised. Agrawal, who reviewed the project progress on Tuesday, said: civil work was nearing completion.

"Work will begin on the exterior facade as well as interior fitments soon.

We should be able to hand over the terminal to airlines and other agencies by March-end. Thereafter, airlines and other concessionaries will take two-three months to get ready and start operations from the terminal," said airport director B P Sharma.

The delays notwithstanding, several airlines have expressed interest to operate from Kolkata once the new terminal is in operation. Foremost among them are passenger carriers Fly Dubai and Cathay Pacific as well as freighter service FedEx Cargo. Jet is also keen to connect Kolkata to Sydney and Melbourne.

" British Airways, Japan Airlines, Austrian Airlines and Air Mauritius have also shown interest. We are in discussion with these and several other airlines. The project may be slightly behind schedule but when the new terminal becomes operational, it will be the pride of Kolkata and others' envy," Sharma added.

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