International airport set to change economic face

International airport set to change economic face
Monday April 16 2007 05:27 IST

BANGALORE: While Bangalore International Airport Limited is confident of completing its prestigious project well within the projected deadline, it also signifies that the small town of Devanahalli is finally closer to leapfrogging into the limelight.

Quite naturally, the airport is now a landmark with people in the region using it as a measure of distance. Since the project was announced, Devanahalli - earlier known only as the birthplace of the Tiger of Mysore Tipu Sultan - has been witnessing a dizzying increase in land prices. Now, the town can expect a boom in business activities, with several facilities, -including an aerospace SEZ coming up in the vicinity of the airport- it is closer to welcoming people into Karnataka’s IT showpiece.

Already, the Indian Air Force has taken measures to ensure that its training activities will not interfere with operations of commercial airliners, while the Defence Research and Development Establishment (DRDO) has identified land in Chitradurga to shift its UAV testing facility which is now in Kolar.

However, even as the airport would go into the testing phase by December, work on proper approach roads to Bangalore city would have been far from finished. On the airport front, vital areas like terminal building, four-lane access road, taxiway and runway are slipping into the final stages of construction. Of the total 216- metres, fabrication and erection of 170 metres of the second level walkway has been completed.

The project was redesigned recently based on the revision of traffic forecast estimating a traffic volume of 8.5 million passengers for the year 2010 at the international airport.

Redesign has raised the size of the passenger terminal building, number of aircraft stands, taxi-ways, passenger boarding bridges and the main access road.

Earthworks for car park area is now complete and construction of the pavement works has commenced. The laying of the pavement layers for the main access road is presently on.