Buddha shelves plan for new Kolkata airport
10 Sep 2007
Beleaguered by agitations against land acquisition across the state, West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has shelved his ambitious plan to set up a new greenfield airport near Kolkata. The airport would have required more than 2,000 acres of land.
After a meeting with civil aviation minister Praful Patel and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) top brass in Kolkata on 7 September, where it was agreed that the present airport would be upgraded at a cost of Rs2,000 crore, Bhattacharjee said the revamped NSCBI Airport would cater to the city's traffic requirement for decades.
About two years ago, the CM had mooted the greenfield airport proposal despite opposition from union civil aviation ministry. While he wanted the ultra-modern airport to be developed by a private party, Patel had said Kolkata's air traffic projections did not justify building a new airport.
