Finally, a swanky airport to welcome the world

Prime minister Manmohan Singh Saturday inaugurated the new integrated terminal,T3, at Delhi International Airport which can handle 34 million passengers in a year and is expected to ease travel into the world’s second-most populous country.

Not only will T3 make connectivity from Delhi to other global cities easier, it will also encourage feeder traffic from smaller Indian cities to converge in Delhi before taking onward international connections.

“A good airport would signal the arrival of a new India. The commissioning of this terminal will be a significant step forward in developing Delhi as a vital hub,” the PM said.

Delhi’s T3 and another planned in Mumbai are part of a Government programme designed to lure overseas investment and support travel demand stoked by the nation’s surging economic growth. The number of domestic passengers is estimated to grow more than fourfold to as many as 180 million and international traffic may exceed 50 million annually by 2020.

By then, the Indian aviation business has the potential to absorb $120 billion investment. The PM said that from its ninth position in the global aviation pecking order, India should soon be counted among the world’s top 5 aviation markets.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, civil aviation minister Praful Patel said not only are bigger airports at major metros being upgraded, even smaller airports are undergoing a transformation.

He set a strict deadline of next year for completion of upgradation of 35 airports spread across smaller, non-metro cities. The minister again lamented the delays in granting approval for a second international airport at Navi Mumbai.

He also said that the progress on upgradation of Kolkata and Chennai airports was good and the success of these big metro airports showcased the success of the public private partnership (PPP) model.

Praising the “impressive” new airport, UPA President Sonia Gandhi said quality is not something to be reserved for prestigious projects but should become “part and parcel of our design process for all our public projects including housing and other services”.

“Providing rural and urban infrastructure efficiently and at the same time achieving high standards must remain our goal,” she said.