State Minister for the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism Mahbub Ali has said construction of the third terminal for Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka will be completed within the scheduled time, June 2023. He has also said, after the land development process, currently the piling is going on. Out of 3,000, 464 piles have already been installed. “The construction progress is satisfactory as 6.4 percent of the work has been completed so far since the construction began in 2019,” the state minister said after visiting the site Sunday. Senior Secretary of the civil aviation and tourism ministry M Mohibul Haque and Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh Chairman Vice Marshal M Mofidur Rahman, among others, were present during the time. Construction was not hampered even for a single day during to the pandemic-led shutdown. The work is going on maintaining health safety guidelines properly. The site has separate accommodation, quarantine and medical facility for the workers. Replying to a query, Mahbub Ali said the approved design of the third terminal would not see any change and that there is no scope of increasing the estimated project cost. “Rather, Tk750 crore would remain in surplus from the project. More boarding bridges and an extra VIP terminal complex have been planned to be built with the additional money,” he added. On December 28, 2019, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the landmark “Third Terminal of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport” project aimed at increasing its capacity for carrying passengers and cargoes manifolds. The new international passenger terminal building is set to have a floor area of roughly 22.5 lakh square feet whereas the existing two terminals have space of around 10 lakh square feet together. The expansion is set to increase the airport’s annual passenger handling capacity from the current eight million to approximately 20 million and the cargo capacity from 200,000 tonnes to 500,000 tonnes. The new terminal will be built at a cost of Tk21,300 crore, of which the government is providing Tk5,000 crore and the rest is coming from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
