Halwara airport work picks up pace, 30% complete

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana, January 17

Almost two months after the work of the upcoming international airport at Halwara in Ludhiana resumed following the release of funds by the state government, it has picked up pace.

With the government is making available Rs 50-crore corpus for the project, the construction of the interim terminal building and allied works has touched the 30 per cent mark till date.

Sharing details, the Public Works Department (PWD) Secretary, Rajat Agarwal, told The Tribune, here on Monday, “The remaining work to build the new international airport has been taken up on a war footing. All stops have been pulled to complete the ambitious project at the earliest.”

He disclosed that the flight operations from the new terminal building could begin any time before June 30 before which the new international airport would be made operational.

“While 30 per cent of the terminal building work has been completed, the construction of internal roads has been temporarily stalled due to some issue with the contractor,” the PWD Secretary revealed, while stating that the process to impose penalty as per the agreement and blacklisting the defaulter contractor had been initiated.

Agarwal made it clear that in any case, both the terminal building and internal roads would be built before June 30, even if the re-tendering of the stalled work was required.

“The Civil Aviation Department has begun the process to launch the flight operations by the time a new airport comes up,” he said.

He added that following the allocation of Rs 50 crore by the state government, a sum of Rs 12.5 crore had already been transferred while the total requirement estimated so far was of Rs 45 crore.

Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had visited the airport site for reviewing the project recently and directed officials concerned to complete the ongoing work within three months.

“We have put the work on fast track mode and no delay will be tolerated at any cost,” the CM asserted, while adding that there was no dearth of funds for the project.

The construction of interim terminal building and allied works at the cost of Rs 47 crore was stalled in March last after contractors, who were awarded the work, refused to carry on the ambitious project following non-payment of their dues.

It was in November last that the state government had formally taken over the pending work to build the international airport coming up at Air Force Station in Halwara.

For this purpose, the Finance Department (FD) had released Rs 30 crore while the Housing and Urban Development Department (HUDD) through the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA) had undertaken to bear the expenditure of Rs 20 crore.

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