The West Bengal government is talking to the owners of two tea gardens for land required for the expansion of Bagdogra airport near Siliguri in north Bengal.
The present airport infrastructure is inadequate to handle the rising volume of traffic and Airport Authority of India (AAI) has asked the West Bengal government for land required for expansion.
"The AAI has sought 130 acres for expansion of the Bagdogra airport. We have been able to give 24 acres for facilitating night landing facilitym" state Tourism Minister Gautam Deb said.
Deb, who is an MLA from Dabgram-Phulbari constituency in north Bengal, told reporters on the sidelines of an ICC event here today that talks were on with two tea gardens - Gangaram Tea Estate owned by the Duncans and Bagdogra Tea Estate which were contagious to the airport.
"Either of the garden's land was sufficient for the expansion. But AAI had said that it will not pay for the land which has to be provided by the government", he said.
AAI had announced an investment of Rs 300 crore for meeting the expansion expenditure.
According to Deb, the land would have to be bought by the state government and handed over to the AAI in the form of its equity contribution.
About tourism, Deb said that budgetary outlay had been raised to Rs 375 core under the new Trinamool Congress government as compared to Rs 44 crore under the previous Left Front regime.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)