“The metro race to the airport seems to be turning into a game of political one-upmanship,” says the Times of India, “but, for once, nobody should mind. Both the existing metro under Mamata Banerjee and the east-west metro (a state government project under construction) are hurrying to build a link to the airport. Whoever wins, Kolkata stands to benefit.”

The (north-south) metro railway authorities have prioritised the metro link to the airport. “We have sent the feasibility report on the metro’s airport link to the railway board for its nod,” a senior official is quoted saying.

The east-west metro’s principal funding agency, Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC), has already approved a Rs800-crore project to build its own airport link. The 6.5km elevated arm, which would run along the Bagjola canal, would go underground from near the airport hotel and terminate just below the integrated terminal building. People taking the metro would just be an escalator ride away from the security-check zone on the surface.

The north-south metro will go further north from Dum Dum till Noapara (its car shed) and then go underground till Dum Dum Cantonment. From Dum Dum Cantonment to the airport, it will run on existing elevated tracks that emu rakes use now. The 3.2km elevated track “remains a symbol of colossal waste as of now. So far, only two emus run to and from the airport to the Biman Bandar station.”

Transport department officers argue that the competition is good for the city and the state, the paper says. Kolkata, “bursting at its seams”, desperately needs an efficient mass-rapid transit system. “If two metro systems meet at the airport, it would give commuters a lot of choice,” said a transport department official.

The transport department study emphasised the importance of mass-rapid-transit (MRT) connectivity between the airport and the rest of the city. Currently, the annual passenger-handling capacity of the two terminals is six million. Once the integrated building becomes operational, it will jump to 20 million. While 6,000 private cars and taxis now visit the airport daily, the figure will go up to 24,000 after modernisation. An MRT system could take much pressure off the passenger dispersal system.

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