India Ministry of Civil Aviation: New Integrated Terminal Building Inaugurated At Goa Airport Provid

A New Integrated Terminal Building has been inaugurated by the Minister of Civil Aviation, Shri Ajit Singh today at Goa Airport. Dedicating the new facility to the people of the state, the Minister said, "providing quality aviation infrastructure commensurate with the expected passenger traffic growth is high on priority of my ministry." Expansion and upgradation of airport at such a tourist and industry destination as Goa assumed significant importance, he added.

The New Terminal Building at Goa is an integrated terminal building capable of handling both domestic and international operations. The terminal building is equipped with the state-of-the-art facilities like passenger boarding bridges, CUTE enabled check-in counters, inline compatible baggage handling system, software based building management system, elevators and escalators. The terminal building can handle 2750 peak hour passengers at a time. The terminal building has been built at a cost of Rs. 345 crore.

Speaking on the occasion, the Minister of Civil Aviation highlighted the contribution of Goa in overall economic growth of the country. He said "Goa Airport with 1,000 plus annual international charter flights accounts for almost 90% of India's international charter tourist flights. In the year 2012-13, Goa Airport handled 1,208 charter flights, an increase of 45% over the year 2011-12". He acknowledged the role of Goa Government and Indian Navy for paving way for the development of the new integrated terminal building at Goa Airport.

Shri Ajit Singh underlined that the civil aviation has become a focal point of the development as it is a key infrastructure that connects people, shrinks distances and facilitates the growth of business and seamless flow of investment, leading to multiplier effect across the economy. Expressing the hope that India's domestic air travel market will become the second highest growing market in the world in near future, he said "the domestic passenger movement in the next ten years shall exceed 336 million passengers per annum and international passenger traffic shall cross 84 million mark from the current level of 117 million domestic and 43 million international passengers in 2012-13."

Expressing his happiness over the inauguration of the New Integrated Terminal Building, Shri. K. C. Venugopal, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, said that the Ministry has been giving priority to enhance airport infrastructure in India, modernisation of existing airport infrastructure in metro and non-metro cities and construction of green field airports to bridge the gap between available airport capacity and projected demand.

Governor of Goa, Shri Bharat Vir Wanchoo, Chief Minister, Shri Manohar Parrikar, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Shri K.C. Venugopal, former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shri Digvijay Singh and other dignitaries were present on the occasion. Shri. K.N. Shrivastva, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation delivered the welcome address.