Siemens India gets Rs 95 cr additional BIAL order

Siemens India has announced that along with its industrial solutions and services (I&S) group of Siemens, Germany has bagged a supplementary order from the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) for installing technical systems to support the international airport coming up at Devanahalli, near Bangalore.

According to Siemens India, supplementary order is to take care of the revised plans of expanding airport capacities and the order is worth around Rs 95 crore (Euro 16 million) is in addition to the contract bagged by the company in 2005 to equip the new airport.

The BIAL order is to execute electrical, airfield lighting IT and communications systems, passenger boarding bridges, escalators and elevators, a baggage handling system and the power supply equipment and a building security and automation systems.

The supplementary order thus means that the airport will be able to serve 11 million passengers a year in the first stage of the project""more than double the number originally planned. Even with this revision to enlarge capacities, the completion of the airport remains scheduled for April 2008," said the company release.

The first stage of the Bangalore airport project was originally designed to handle approximately 4.5 million passengers. However, a recent study commissioned by BIAL forecast a turnover of around 6.7 million passengers in 2008, the year the airport is scheduled to open.

Based on these studies, BIAL in April 2006 decided to make some appropriate modifications in the first stage of the project with a view to accommodate larger number of passengers. The company is expanding the baggage handling system. The terminal building is also being enlarged.

According to a statement from Siemens, expansion of the power supply, building, safety and communications systems has thus likewise become necessary and now is also included in the scope of supply.

In addition to this, the layout of the runway, the taxiways and the parking positions is being rearranged to allow more flight movements. In this context, the company is supplying the airfield and apron lighting equipment.

In the final stage of the project, more than 40 million passengers and a million tonnes of airfreight are to be handled each year.