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March, 2001 WHEN creating something even small in magnitude may bring immense satisfaction to a person, the heady feeling that the engineers might have felt on completion of world’s largest construction project would have been something beyond description and worth actual experience only! The project is Chek Lap Kok International Airport, Hong Kong. Built at a whooping cost of Rs 84000 crore, the airport has been completed only recently to its full capacity and in a time span of just nine years. That is equivalent to spending Rs 9300 crore per year! Comparing with this, the massive Ranjit Sagar Dam project built at a cost of Rs 3800 crore in a period of 25 years looks insignificant. Taking cost as the key factor, it can be worked out that the machinery and manpower deployed at Hong Kong, international airport was more than 58 times than that used on the RSD project. Chek Lap Kok International Airport has also been voted as the Best Asian Project of the 20th century. The assessment has been carried out by the prestigious US based organisation CONEXPO. It has also received the title of world’s largest construction project and has figured among the 10 best projects of the world. Spread over an area of 1248 hectares, this Hong Kong airport now handles 45 million passengers a year on an average. In year 2000, it handled 87 million passengers! That means handling 2.5 lakh passengers and their luggage every day. The number of flights per day is 460, going up to 560 on a particular day. The airport is no less than a visitor’s paradise and a tourist spot in itself, such swift and immaculate are its services and so fresh and clean are its buildings and surroundings. The layout resembles the shape of an aeroplane.Built on the Chek Lap Kok island, 25 km from Central Hong Kong, 75% of its site area was formed by a massive reclamation from the sea. The site preparation itself took 31 months i.e. 25% of the total time period. For it, 347 million cubic-metres of material was handled 4 lakh cu.m. of rock, mud, sand and soil was removed every day at a rate of 17000 cu.m. per hour or say nine tonne of material per second. The project involved one of the largest earth moving operations ever taken up in the world in such a short time. The airport has an eight level unique design with four of its levels devoted to a highly efficient and effective transportation system. Level 5 accommodates the arrivals, level 6 is for boarding, level 7 is to check-in while level 8 has miscellaneous airport facilities and offices. As the airports are mostly located away from the city areas, their utilisation and efficiency depends upon the transportation system connecting them to the cities around them. Excellent transportation network has been created at the Hong Kong International Airport. This airport has the rare facility of a direct connection with the railway network! The trains connecting the downtown Hong Kong to the airport run at a 10 minute interval and cover a distance of 34 km in just 23 minutes. The four level ground transportation centre accommodates the Airport Express Railway Station in addition to other public transports such as taxis, buses, tour coaches, hotel limousines and private cars. Even perry service is made available at the ferry pier of the airport. Cyber break cafes, multimedia lounges and wireless LAN services are abundantly available at the airport. Most of these services are free, never allowing the passengers to go out of touch with the world while waiting for their flights. In addition, there are multimedia pay phones which keep one connected to the world of dot com. The passenger terminal complex of the airport can be reckoned as its best engineering feature. This 1.27 km long Y-shaped building has an area of 5,50,000 sq. m. It accommodates 70 moving walkways, 10400 luggage trolleys, 92 lifts and 68 escalators. There are 140 commercial, food and beverage outlets in it. Though the airport handles 1.5 to 2.5 lakh passengers and their luggage in a day, the terminal complex is so designed that the pedestrian flow for arrivals and departures is free of hassles. Signage is frequent and prominent to guide the passengers. Extensive use of exposed structural steel has been made in the terminal complex. Only the roof structure has consumed 15000 metric tonne of fabricated steel. Tall, circular concrete columns built over a grid of 36mX36m support a 400 mm deep shell roof. The sky lights provided in the shell roof allow the daylight to come in which is reflected by light reflectors to fully illuminate the inside of the complex. Abundant use of glass has been made in the building. The glass lift shafts, glass walls, glass balustrades and partitions further reflect the reflected daylight adding brightness to the interiors. An efficient and unobtrusive air-conditioning system adds comfort and ambience to the massive 550000 sq. m. area. There are two runways having a total length of 3800 metres. 48 frontal aircraft gates and 27 Aprons ensure smooth movement of aircrafts. Adjacent to the passenger terminal, a 1100 room hotel has been constructed. A large workforce of 45000 has been deployed to manage the airport.
World’s largest construction project should be a source of inspiration for the Indian engineers. Completion of this Rs 84000 crore project in just nine years proves that today, nothing is impossible and also that we have miles to go to come at par with international standards. As the project has proved commercially viable, the arrangement of such a large capital and economics of its return should be studied by the economists.
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