Noida: A 61km railway line proposed between Chola in Bulandshahr and Rundhi in Palwal to connect Noida International Airport with major routes to Howrah, Chennai and Mumbai may now be built near the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) and aviation hubs, designed to come up in the second phase of the project.
The alignment of the tracks, initially proposed to be linked with the airport's ground transportation centre (GTC) in the core zone through an 11km underground channel, is likely to be revised after Noida International Airport Ltd (NIAL) flagged extensive tunnelling would not just be costlier but potentially infeasible due to soil conditions.
The GTC, which is to come up on 20 acres of land between the two terminals of the airport in the third phase when NIA's annual passenger capacity is expected to reach 30 million, is envisioned to provide direct access to buses, metro, rapid rail and pod taxi from the NIA premises to ensure flyers don't have to exit the terminal to reach their destinations in the city.
NIAL CEO Arun Vir Singh said while the first draft with the rail tracks, planned inside the GTC via an underground tunnel, provided for train movement in both directions from the airport, it could create technical hurdles for the airport's future expansion.
In a meeting in Sept, YIAPL, the airport's concessionaire, had proposed to build the tracks along the boundary of the airport's MRO and aviation hub projects and construction of a dedicated railway station nearby. In a letter to NIAL nodal officer Shailendra Bhatia, YIAPL CEO Christoph Schnellmann said, "The railway station is positioned in proximity to the eastern campus of NIA, which can be connected to the multi-modal cargo hub by means of an efficient road network. YIAPL could then operate transport services to connect the railway station to the passenger terminal building at NIA."
The concessionaire also suggested operating shuttle services to connect the station and the airport terminal.
After YIAPL's proposal received a go-ahead from UP's civil aviation department, NIAL asked North Central Railway to draw up a revised plan.