Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's daughter Anita Bose Pfaff has praised the decision of naming Kolkata international airport after his father, and said its brand new high-tech integrated airport terminal proved that the metropolitan city was at the front position of significant change.

Speaking about the newly-inaugurated Terminal 2, Anita Bose said, "It's a nice memorial that the airport is named after him. The fact that it's such a beautiful building proves that Kolkata is at the forefront of significant change."

President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated the brand new integrated terminal on Sunday. He said the modernized terminal should serve as the gateway to the East. He added that the facility would also be very useful as Kolkata would be a significant place in terms of the government's `Look East' policy.

Developed by ITD Cementation India Ltd in partnership with its parent company Italian-Thai Development Public Co. Ltd, the Rs 2,300-crore state-of-the-art terminal has a capacity to handle 20 million passengers per annum.

The outstanding steel & glass structure is spread over 189,815 square metres of space. It will be eventually equipped with 48 international & 80 domestic check-in counters, 23 international & 33 domestic security gates and 38 immigration counters & 18 aerobridges.

The first flight from the new terminal will be a Kolkata-New Delhi-New York flight on January 23. But, the full-fledged operations will start from March-end this year.