Foundation stone of Vijayawada airport's new terminal laid

Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday laid the foundation stone for the new terminal building at the city airport, built at an estimated cost of Rs 135 crore.

After the ceremony, Union Minister for Civil Aviation P Ashok Gajapathi Raju told reporters that Andhra Pradesh has become an aviation-friendly state after it reduced the tax on turbine fuel to only one per cent in a bid to encourage the air traffic in the region.

With the new terminal coming up, more traffic will be expected for the airport. The airport needs 700 acres for expansion, which will have a modern runway to facilitate all kinds of aircraft, Raju said.

He appealed to the farmers to relinquish their land for the airport expansion programme. The Vijayawada airport will also have a facility for cargo service, the Union minister said adding that previously Vijayawada operated only 60 services a week, which has now increased to 170.

An Airports Authority of India (AAI) official had earlier said the current capacity is about 35,000 passengers per month (about 4 lakh per annum) and the new interim terminal building will have the capacity to handle one million passengers.

The construction work is expected to complete in 15 months on warfooting basis as the state government has planned to shift its base from Hyderabad to Vijayawada.

The airport in the truncated state of Andhra Pradesh, which used to have just 10 flights a day, now witnesses 27 flights with a runway of 7,500 feet largely due to the increased activity in Vijayawada and Guntur following the Government's decision to shift activities from Hyderabad to the coastal cities.

PTI