Srinagar, March 25 : With state of the art facilities and equipment, including Doppler Very High Frequency Omni Range (DVOR) being installed at the Srinagar International Airport, it will start remaining operational even at 500 metre visibility, an official said. A range of modern equipments besides the DVOR, that will improve air navigation and passenger safety that have been installed include Non Directional Beacon (NDB), Instrument Landing System (ILS), X-ray baggage inspection System (XBIS), Inline Baggage Screening System (ILBS) and Explosive trace detection (ETD) has been installed at the airport, said the Airport Director Kuldeep Singh. A total of around Rs 1,500 crore will be spent on the new terminal building and six more aircraft parking stands, he added. Singh said the equipment installed are of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security’s (BCAS) standard. “We take all necessary steps to ensure that our operations are conducted in a safe and secure manner and with this objective, we have installed a range of modern equipment for the purpose of air navigation of the aircraft, passenger safety, and security at the Srinagar airport,” Singh said. He said the staff will undergo proper training for using these equipments. Singh said that the instrument landing system (ILS) at the airport is designed to function at the visibilities of more than 1,000m. “We never operate a flight if the visibility is less than this threshold. As such, the operation of our ILS is completely safe and secure,” he said. He said that to overcome the low visibility closure of the airfield a precision instrument approach and landing with a CAT II ILS system is likely to be installed by April and it will be ready for commissioning in October. With the installation of the new system, the visibility threshold will improve to 500m, he said. The most modern machinery for snow removal and ice clearing from the airfield would be put in service during the harsh winter months. “Our objective is always to ensure minimum disruption to the flight operations in all kinds of inclement weather. We are sensitive to the adverse effect of the snow accumulation on the aircraft wings. Thus we deploy water spray for de-icing so that there are no unnecessary delays in flight operations,” Singh said. The training of our maintenance officers is conducted at ICAO certified facilities in accordance with the aviation standards. QAB ING