AGARTALA, Sept 4 - The facelift works of Agartala Airport, second business airport of the NE, would start from January next, according to official sources here.
The facelift works are expected to get completed by 2020 with Airports Authority of India (AAI) preparing to hand over the Rs 438 crore project to a construction agency.
Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayanta Chowdhury, who had visited the State, held a meeting with Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and apprised him of AAI�s target.
As per the plan, there would be a new terminal building to provide service to around 1,200 passengers daily. Besides six new aprons, facilities would be created for 12 planes to stay at the airport as against only five planes now.
�The existing runway would be extended for facilitating landing and take-off to big size planes. Once the facelift works are completed, it would be easily elevated to international airport�, said a senior AAI official here on Sunday.
The Civil Aviation Ministry wants to connect Agartala with Dhaka, Bangkok and Yangon as early as possible. �The new terminal building would be two-storied which will be more or less replica of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Airport in Kolkata�, he said.
The State Government has already handed over 72 acres of land to AAI to take up the modernisation plan for the Airport and AAI is in the process of handing over the works to a construction agency.
According to sources, the Union Minister assured the State Government to explore possibility of connecting Agartala with Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Currently, Indigo and Spicejet offer six flights and three flights respectively while Air India operates one flight. The State Government has already demanded Air India to increase its flight service to Agartala.
