Bangabandhu Airport
Govt changes plan, decides to acquire more land
The government has changed its plan for the proposed Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib International Airport as the highups decided to acquire more land to build three runways instead of two considering next 100 years' passenger demand.
"Now, we are looking for acquiring more than 10,000 acres of land instead of earlier 6,000 acres for making provision of building three runways," Civil Aviation and Tourism Secretary Shafique Alam Mehedi told at a press briefing at Balaka Bhaban yesterday.
At the first phase, two runways would be set up for the airport and the third one to be built later on as the government's highups directed to make the plan targeting next hundred years' passenger demand.
Presently, the civil aviation and tourism ministry is searching land for the airport adjacent to the site of proposed Padma Bridge, Mehedi said.
A civil aviation ministry team led by the secretary has already identified two sites in the south of the capital- one in Bhanga upazila under Faridpur district and the other is Arial bill, situated in Srinagar upazila of Munshiganj district and Dohar and Nawabganj upazila in Dhaka district.
The team will inspect the site from helicopter on November 15 for getting a first-hand aerial view, Mehedi said.
Earlier, the pre-feasibility study team of the civil aviation authority has initially selected three sites-- two at Trishal in Mymensingh and one at Bhuapur in Tangail.
"The two sites in the south are not far more than 60 km from Dhaka city whereas the earlier sites in the north are more than 100 km from the capital," he said.
As per the feasibility study, the airport will be connected with the capital through an elevated expressway and a metro rail.
The civil aviation authority will submit site selection report to the ministry by this month, which would be handed over to the PM later on.
The government has already set up a cell under the Civil Aviation and Tourism Ministry to execute the project of constructing the Airport to facilitate movement of some 80 lakh passengers a year.
The cell will be responsible for conducting the tender process as well as coordinating the entire construction process of the airport before 2014, Head of the cell Jaynal Abedin Talukdar told BSS.
A number of internationally reputed airport builders from abroad have already contacted to set up the airport which would be built under public private-partnership as the government will only provide the land, he said.
The ministry will publish the expression of interest (EOI) as part of the process of floating tender within December this year, Talukdar added.
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