The government has made a fresh move to build the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib International Airport with a greater aim of making it an air-transit hub for this subcontinent, officials said Monday.
Preparations are afoot for a feasibility study and site selection for the BSMIA.
Government's previous move to set up the airport at Aarialkhan Beel in Munshiganj had hit snags and was stalled in the wake of raucous protests by the locals over the site.
The landowners in the wetlands put up the protest as thousands of acres of croplands of the farmers could be lost in the massive multipurpose project site.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) has now decided to appoint a consultant for studying feasibility and selecting the most viable site at a cost of Tk 1.37 billion.
"The consultant will conduct a feasibility study at some prospective places of the country. Based on the study report, the site will be selected," said a Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism senior official.
The government's Aviation Authority had earlier chosen Trishal in Mymensingh, Charjanajat in Madaripur, Arialkhan Beel in Munshiganj, and Tangail as the prospective site.
As per CAAB's pre-feasibility study, it will require US$7.0 billion funds for building the Bangabandhu airport.
The CAAB in its Tk 1.37 billon technical project proposal (TPP) said it will study feasibility for selecting the site and its economic viability for the proposed airport.
"The existing Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) in Dhaka has limited capacity to accommodate growing air traffic. So, Bangladesh needs to build a new, bigger airport for accommodating the growing air traffic," said a senior CAAB official.
Currently, HSIA's 80 per cent capacity is utilised. The growing air traffic will surpass the maximum capacity of the air-traffic management within next few years, CAAB officials claimed.
HSIA handles only 8.0 million passengers a year and the number is growing year-on-year, the official said.
He said the CAAB had plans to build the proposed Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib International Airport like the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok.
Opened in September 2006, Suvarnabhumi Airport has a capacity of 45 million passengers a year, 76 flights an hour and three million tonnes of cargo per annum.
According to the sources, some international construction firms, experienced in building airports in various countries, are interested to construct the airport on build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) basis.
According to the preliminary plan, the construction of the airport will be carried out in three phases within 15 years. But it will start operation upon completion of the work in the first-phase, in the process of which the rudder station, runway and the terminal building will be set up or built, sources said.
The government had earlier drawn up a plan for the first phase of the proposed Tk 500 billion Bangabandhu airport in next five years on the BOOT basis.
According to the preliminary plan, the airport will be established on about 6,000 acres of land with three 9,000-foot runways and all other modern facilities like those at Dubai, Singapore or Bangkok airports.
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Fresh move to build new int\\\'l airport
FHM Humayan Kabir | Published: May 12, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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