Nagpur, Apr 14: Union Minister for Agriculture, Food and Public Distribution, Consumer Affairs Sharad Pawar will inaugurate the new terminal building of the Dr. Ambedkar International Airport here today.

Union Minister for Civil Aviation Praful Patel, Union Minister for Non Conventional Energy Sources Vilas Muttemwar and Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh will also present on the occasion.

The Airport Authority of India (AAI) has extensively modified and upgraded the existing terminal building at the cost of Rs. 79 crores to make it into a modern, world class integrated terminal building.

The building covers an area of 17500 square meters and has a capacity to handle 400 arriving or 400 departing domestic passengers and 150 arriving and 150 departing international passengers during peak hours.

The integrated terminal building is a contemporary concrete, glass and steel structure and is equipped with modern facilities such as central air-conditioning, passenger boarding bridges with visual docking guidance system, escalators, lifts, baggage conveyor system in arrival as well as departure hall, CCTV, FIDS and other such modern passenger amenities of international standards.

For passenger facilitation and convenience, the new terminal building has been provided with 20 check-in counters and 20 immigration counters.

It has modern facilities like restaurant, snack bar, childcare room, bank, ATM, duty free shop, concessionaire and medical inspection rooms. A spacious car park, which can accommodate 600 cars at a time, has also been built.

For improving city side connectivity, AAI has also constructed a new approach road to connect the terminal building with the main highway.

AAI is also seized of the need to improve the ATM and communication, navigation facilities at the Nagpur airport. It plans to construct a new control tower and technical block with all modern CNS ATM facilities. (ANI)