Sujalaam Skycity: Spearheading the future

In an era, when West Bengal is daring to shake off every stereotype it was once associated with and gearing up for a future every bit as glorious as its past, Bengal Aerotropolis Projects Ltd stands as a stellar symbol of all this state is, can and will be.
The organisation, Incorporated in 2007, has already created a buzz by coming up with the first aerotropolis (or airport city) in India. Sujalaam Skycity is coming up at Durgapur in West Bengal within the 1616-sq-km Asansol-Durgapur Planning Area (ADPA) — an infrastructure project of hitherto unseen scope and scale.
However, one of the justified questions can be this: Why exactly is an aerotropolis special?
How would a city built around an airport be any different from an airport built within a city? Eventually, it all comes down to a city with an airport, does it not? Why Kolkata, then, or Mumbai, or Delhi wouldn’t be considered aerotropoli in their own rights?
It is an interesting question, but the answer is simple.
An aerotropolis is built the same way port cities were built in the previous centuries. The planned arrangement was such that the city served the port by feeding it with its produce and got benefitted in turn by everything that arrived at the city through the port. Port cities were not just cities with a port, they were planned to drive commerce in the area by making the best of complementary infrastructure.
A Skycity is just the same, except for one feature. Instead of a port, it has an airport. If port cities were booming centers of commerce in the previous centuries, airport cities would be the same for this century and the next.
If that lays the foundation for tomorrow, Bengal Aerotropolis has more reasons to be considered a truly future-focused organization based out of Bengal.
The recent draft National Civil Aviation Policy has given a fillip to air connectivity to remote areas at an affordable cost.
At the heart of Sujalaam Skycity resides The Kazi Nazrul Islam (KNI) Airport: no-frills and entirely functional.
The airport is equipped to connect major metros of the Nation with the hinterlands of Bengal — fuelling the possibility of much greater domestic air travel, which the policy has repeatedly stressed on. It has truly been a project much ahead of its time.
What’s more, the Airport is complemented by dedicated industrial, residential, commercial, logistical, healthcare and educational zones, each spanning acres.
In terms of vision, planning, connectivity, scope and economic possibilities, Sujalaam Skycity is clearly without a parallel in India.