Deadlock Continues Over Location of Metro Station at Lucknow’s Airport

While work continues on the 8.3 km priority corridor between Transport Nagar and the Charbagh Railway Station in Lucknow, talks between the Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation and the Airport Authority of India (AAI) recently failed to agree upon the exact location of the underground metro station at the Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport which will be built in the 2nd Phase of the project.

The disagreement arose over security concerns by AAI who insisted that the station must be located outside of the 100m stipulated “security zone”. As per LMRC’s Director, Daljit Singh:

We gave them several examples, both here in the country and abroad where metro stations are in located in close proximity of airports but the (AAI) officials refused to budge

Satellite view of the parking lot, terminal & apron area of the airport:

Lucknow’s new terminal which opened in 2012 – Photo Copyright: Architecture Live

Here’s a map I’ve made which shows the route of the priority corridor along with the Transport Nagar to Airport stretch:

Lucknow Metro’s 8.3 KM priority corridor + Transport Nagar-Airport stretch

According to the LMRC’s Managing Director, Kumar Keshav, the LMRC now plans to escalate the matter and take it up with the AAI’s security commissioner since the original location was selected & designed keeping the travelers’ convenience in mind. According to him:

We gave them (AAI) examples of China and Hong Kong where metro stations are located within 50-metres radius of the airports but the airport authority officials said they were helpless as the airport security Act did not allow it.

Due to this disagreement, the bidding process for the 2 km Transport Nagar to Airport section which was supposed to be kickstarted in October cannot proceed until the AAI agrees to the station’s location and also provides a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for leasing out 5443 sq m of land. Like always, one can only hope that better sense prevails.

For more updates on Lucknow’s metro, check out the Lucknow section of The Metro Rail Guy!

– TMRG