Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday inaugurated the construction work of Tk 21,300 crore ‘Third Terminal’ of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) to significantly increase passenger and cargo capacity, reports UNB.

The government will provide Tk 5,000 crore of the construction cost and the rest will be funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Mitsubishi and Fujita of Japan and Samsung of Korea were awarded to construct the terminal under a consortium.

The new international passenger terminal building is set to have a floor area of around 2.25 million square feet whereas the exiting two terminals of the HSIA have space of around one million square feet together.

The HSIA’s expansion will increase the airport’s annual passenger handling capacity from the current eight millions to approximately 20 million, and the cargo capacity from 200,000 tonnes to 500,000 tonnes.

It will also be possible to monitor all operational works of the new terminal from a single control room.

The project, with an estimated cost of Tk 13,610.47 crore, got the nod of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) on October 24, 2017.

However, the cost of the project rose subsequently due to expansion of some of the project works, including setting up of separate export and import cargo houses and construction of new VVIP terminal.

The construction work is expected to take 48 months.

The three-storey third terminal building, designed by Rohani Baharin of internationally renowned CPG Corporation (Private) Limited Singapore, will have a floor space of 2,30,000 square metres.

It will have 115 check-in counters, including 15 self-service, 66 departure immigration counters, including 10 automatic passport control counter, 59 arrival immigration desks, including five automatic check-in counter and 19 check-in arrival counters, while 16 arrival baggage belts will be set up.

According to the project design, the third terminal will have 12 boarding bridges and conveyer belts each.