Home

Back to Index

Kochi airport to have perishable cargo centre

       Thiruvananthapuram: Kochi airport will have a cargo perishable centre by March 2007. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in this regard has been inked here. The state-of-the-art Rs.247.3 million centre will be managed by the Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) in Kochi. The agreement was inked by CIAL chief Sriram Bharat and K.S. Mani of APEDA. CIAL and the the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) will investing Rs.115.3 million and Rs 132 million respectively in the project. The civil works of the centre has already begun and would occupy a space of 25,000 sq ft. The centre is designed to handle 25,000 metric tonnes of cargo, comprising vegetables and similar produce every year. It would be a hi-tech centre with centralised control system connected to the Internet where by exporters and end users could track the movement of their supplies sitting at their offices. Meanwhile, the Central Government has given its approval for a Rs. 258 crore project for modernisation of the International Airport in Thiruvanathanpuram, fulfilling a longstanding demand of the Kerala Government. Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel is said to have conveyed this decision during a telephonic conversation with Kerala Law Minister M Vijayakumar. The Centre has also allocated another Rs 70 crore for setting up an aircraft maintenance unit at the airport, Vijayakumar said. The state government has already handed over 15 acres of land free of cost to Air India for setting up the aircraft maintenance centre, he said. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to visit Kerala in October to lay the foundation stone for a new terminal building at the airport, he added.
-Sept 15,  2006

List of Leading Indian News Papers