Unique infrastructure project! Soon, India will get its first airport which will have a national highway running under its runway. The Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) International Airport in Babatpur, which is nearly 26 km from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh will soon become the country’s first airport to have a national highway running under its runway, according to a TOI report. The development of an underpass will be done in a way, which will ensure the expansion of the airport’s runway for the landing of big planes, as well as convert the highway into a four-lane road.
According to NHAI project director (Varanasi) S B Singh quoted in the report, for the first time, the country will get a highway, which will pass under the runway of an airport. Additionally, with the development of the underpass, the issue of deciding the alignment of NH-56, which is being converted into a four-lane road will also be solved, he said. As the work to expand the runway is yet to start, the NHAI is repairing the existing highway patch in order to provide smooth vehicular movement, he added.
The airport’s runway expansion recently got approved by the Airport Authority of India (AAI), under which the underpass will be constructed to keep the alignment of the Varanasi-Lucknow highway (NH-56) intact. In order to ensure landing of big cargo as well as Boeing planes at the airport, the runaway, which is currently 2,750 m long is likely to get extended up to 4,075 m, according to officials.
For over a decade, the proposal to transform the NH-56 into a four-lane has been in the pipeline. In the year 2013, the proposal got approved by the UPA government. The basic work on the Varanasi-Sultanpur stretch was started by the NHAI but not much headway could be made. With the change in the government in 2014, other work including the process of land acquisition on the Varanasi-Sultanpur stretch sped up. But still, the issue of alignment remained unresolved.
