Pune, Mar 24 : : The Airports Authority will construct an integrated terminal with an area of more than five lakh square feet with state-of-the-art facilities in order to increase the passenger traffic from Pune and reduce congestion in the existing building, and It will be open for use fromthis year, said Member of Parliament Girish Bapat here today. A meeting of Airport Authority officials was held today under the chairmanship of Bapat, who has been pursuing the expansion of the airport for the last three years. Mr Bapat recently met Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Shinde and submitted with details proposal for Pune airport expansion. The state-of-the-art with new integrated terminal will be fully air-conditioned. It will have a capacity of 1 crore 90 lakh passengers per year. It will be able to accommodate 2,300 passengers during rush hour (1,700 domestic and 600 international), he said. The building will have 5 new routes (passenger boarding bridges), 8 automatic escalators, 15 lifts, 34 check-in counters. The building will have state-of-the-art facilities like passenger luggage system, five conveyor belts in the arrival area and others, he said. The new terminal will be environmentally friendly. It will provide 36,000 square feet of space for food and shops. There will be drinking water facilities, sewage treatment plants as well as well-equipped and state-of-the-art toilets. It will be designed to enhance the beauty of Pune, said Bapat. Construction of the terminal has been started from 2018. Of this, 61 per cent work has been completed and it will be completed by August 2022. Space for parking at the airport has always been a problem. The new building will lead to a permanent settlement. A four-storey and two-storey basement building is also being constructed at a cost of Rs 120 crore. It can accommodate 1024 vehicles at a time. The new buildings also provided 15,000 square feet of space for passenger entertainment and commercial use. The new terminal will be suitable for passengers of all ages including senior citizens. Bapat said that the terminal at the present airport is only 22,000 square meters. This causes great inconvenience to passengers and airlines during rush hour. The terminal has the capacity to handle 80 lakh passengers annually. Considering the growing expansion of Pune, the number of citizens traveling by air has also increased. Therefore, a well-equipped terminal was needed for the convenience of the passengers. It will be completed now, he added. Lohgaon Airport in Pune is an important airport in Maharashtra. It connects ten surrounding districts. The number of industries in and around Pune is also increasing day by day. Therefore, more and more terminals were needed to provide better facilities to the passengers. So the last three years have been striving for the expansion of this airport. This work will be completed soon and the air travel of the citizens will be more comfortable. SP JM 2037
