New terminal building coming up at Cooch Behar Airport

 

COOCH BEHAR, April 16: Construction work for the Rs 12.5-crore new Terminal Building of Cooch Behar Airport is going on to accommodate fifty incoming and fifty outgoing passengers. The old terminal building that was constructed during the regime of the erstwhile Maharajas has capacity to accommodate twenty incoming and twenty outgoing passengers only. The construction is being done targeting to meet the required demand for the next twenty years.

 

In the recent past the Airport Authority of India (AAI) and the district administration of Cooch Behar announced no certain date for commencement of resuming of air service at the abandoned airport. They are now cautious enough to announce a date because during the past few years about a dozen times the scheduled dates were differed. It was learnt that Air Deccan was selected as the service provider airlines and they will put ATR-42 aircrafts into service in Kolkata-Cooch Behar route.

 

Trial flight was done satisfactorily at Cooch Behar Airport on 27 November in 2007 and the airport is now completely ready for landings and takeoff. The lone problem in resuming of air services is at the end of the service provider airlines, a senior AAI official said.

 

The total area of Cooch Behar Airport is of 28.86-acre including the newly acquired 1,20,000 square-feet land. Construction of boundary wall was already completed surrounding the airport. In the newly added area the existing runway will be extended by 350-metre and 'approach light' facility will be added for emergency landing. A technical block cum fire station is also coming up at the airport.

 

In the airport one-sided landing is possible now due to presence of NH-31 on the opposite side and it compelled the authorities to make the runway shorter by 170-metre. Extension of length is needed for this reason. Mentionworthy, the total length of the runway was 1129-metre.

 

In the new Terminal Building there will be car-parking facility for general public, VIPs and passenger buses. It is being constructed following modern landscaping architecture. Cutten-glass will be used here instead of ordinary glass and bricks having alloy-sheet roofing. Presence of a coloured fountain and pedestrian walkway will make it attractive, the AAI officials believe. Though 15 August of this year was scheduled for completion of the Terminal Building it may take upto December to make it completed, an official said. []

 

PHOTO : Construction of new Terminal Building of Cooch Behar Airport being done in Cooch Behar on Wednesday. – DEBASHIS BHAUMIK.