Panaji (Goa)

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has signed a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Navy for construction of Rs 183 crore parallel taxi track suitable for the B747 type of aircraft at the Dabolim International Airport.

In its proposal before the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEF&CC), AAI have said that the project will be completed within 30 months.

The AAI had approached EAC for approval of Terms of Reference (ToR) for its project. The committee has directed the AAI to conduct the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) study with the focus on traffic decongestion plan at the Dabolim airport for its proposed project.

“In order to reduce the runway occupancy time by civil flights, a full-length parallel taxi track suitable for the B747 type of aircraft is required to be constructed. AAI and Indian Navy have entered into an MOU for the same to share the cost of construction 50:50,” AAI said in its proposal.

The Airports Authority have stated that due to the absence of Parallel Taxi Track on the northern side of runway 08 – 26, landed aircraft have to backtrack on the runway to reach the civil apron using the taxiways N1/N2, N4, N5 or using curtailed Parallel Taxi Track on the southern side involving the crossing of runway. This process limits the runway capacity of handling aircraft.