By IANS,
Nagpur : Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar Monday dedicated to the nation the renovated and expanded Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport here and said it would be handed over to the Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) “very soon”.
The once lack-lustre, low-passenger-volume airport has metamorphosed into a swanky airport with a 17,500 sq-m wide terminal building equipped with all world class facilities to handle huge domestic and international air traffic.
The airport, which already handles 210 flights a week including four international ones, will be the pivotal point of the upcoming Multi-modal International Hub Airport, Nagpur (MIHAN), project being executed in conjunction with a multi-product Special Economic Zone.
The renovated, centrally air-conditioned concrete glass and steel airport will be complete with escalators, 20 check-in and immigration points, duty free shop, a round-the-clock snacks bar and an internet café besides an ATM facility.
The Airports Authority of India completed the renovation at a cost of Rs.790 million in about two years.
Referring to a bitter controversy over the airport’s much delayed transfer from the Airports Authority of India to the MADC, Pawar said, a joint-venture company of MADC and AAI will be in place within a fortnight and the promised transfer of the airport to the JVC will follow soon after that.
“There was no plan at any stage to hijack the project to Pune (Pawar’s home district) as the district is clogged with industries and investment or no deliberate slowing down as alleged”, Pawar said on the occasion.
Paying birth-anniversary tributes to B.R. Ambedkar, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said the airport named after the architect of the Indian constitution and a visionary of modern India will soon have direct flights to Chennai and Lucknow or Varanasi in addition to the existing ones to Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune and Kolkata.