New terminal at Delhi airport washed away

The departure lounge of what is supposed to be Delhi's pride, the domestic airport's new terminal 1D, washed away after just one hour of heavy rain on Friday. This led to chaos and delays.

Just a month ago, this was the condition of the same departure lounge after a downpour.

Obviously no lessons learnt after last month's deluge. And 12 hours after Friday's deluge work is still on to repair the damage.

This has raised questions about Rs 500 crore Delhi Airport Modernisation project, which was handed over to Delhi International Airport Limited -- a joint venture between GMR and Frankfurt Airport. But the consortium maintains that rain was accompanied by winds that were too strong.

The government, however, is not buying this argument. They say the new modernised airport was built to weather even earthquakes and cyclones and have now threatened action.

NDTV has learnt that the government is angry since this is the second such incident in a month. A recurrence of what happened last month means that the problem was never really fixed. Though the government did not ask for an explanation then, there are fears that the new terminals may have been opened for use in a hurry.

"Changes are all cosmetic. My worry is that on the old building they've just put up glass and made it fancier. That doesn't make it strong," said a passenger.

With an eye on the Commonwealth Games next year many new services have been introduced here. But more than fancy umbrellas, what the airport urgently needs is an all weather terminal.

Tags: airport, Delhi, rain

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