KOLKATA: Bengal chief secretary H K Dwivedi has asked the DM of South 24 Parganas, P Ulganathan, to finalize a plot of around 3,000 hectares in Bhangar for setting up the city's second airport to reduce congestion at Dum Dum.
The state officials said that for a long time, there had been a demand for a second airport close to the city and scouting for land is on for the project. Earlier, the officials had suggested Andal airport as the second airport of the state. But that idea was rejected since the travel time from the city to Andal is over three hours.
The new airport will have at least two runways, each 3km in length, a space of 300m between them for wide-body aircraft to operate simultaneously.
The chief secretary also held a meeting with the DMs of Malda, South Dinajpur and Cooch Behar to take stock of the airports in these districts as the state is revamping facilities in these airports to make them fully functional so that the load from Bagdogra airport can also be reduced. The state government also plans to make the Purulia airport functional.
However, an official said getting such a big plot might be difficult in Bhangar, keeping in mind the anti-land acquisition movement in January 2017 during the setting up of a project of Power Grid Corporation. "We have to be very careful while dealing with land acquisition," the official said.
