Come September 30, international airport at Halwara set to get wings

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, September 2

The upcoming international airport at Halwara in Ludhiana will be ready to take off by September 30, the government has claimed.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has fixed September 30 as the deadline to complete the job following which the Rs 47-crore much-delayed project would see the light of day, but not before missing 12 deadlines in the past almost two and a half years.

While the integrated civil enclave and cargo terminal building, substation and a toilet block at the Air Force Station had already been set up at Halwara, which is one of the oldest frontline airbases of the IAF close to Ludhiana, the allied civil works of the aviation project have also been completed.

Sharing details, Deputy Commissioner Sakshi Sawhney told The Tribune here on Monday that the civil construction work had been completed and the IAF, which owned the airbase on which the airport had been built, had accelerated the work to widen taxiways.

Sakshi said the IAF had assured that the pending work under their territory would be completed by September 30. The DC said once the IAF completed the work under its jurisdiction, the minor finishing work at the level of the state government and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) would be executed simultaneously. She said the state government had so far released Rs 30 crore to complete the ongoing work.

Talking about the component-wise status, the DC said the construction of the interim terminal building, substation, and the toilet block had been completed. Finishing touches were being given before handing over the project to the AAI.

“All the pending work is scheduled to be finished by the month-end,” the DC said, adding that the completion of work by the IAF job would give wings to the new airport.

Recently, the AAI and the IAF had been granted in-principle approvals to undertake the remaining work at the upcoming airport.

Since the new integrated civil enclave and cargo terminal are coming up at Air Force Station at Halwara, the formal nod of the IAF was mandatory to undertake the work inside the Air Force-governed areas.