Ghaziabad: Forty farmers in Sikandarpur village have consented to part with 6.8 acres of land for the expansion of the Hindon civil terminal, clearing a key hurdle for the long-pending project, a district administration official said.“The administration, after conducting parleys with the owners, managed to convince them. The land rates were decided as per the provisions of the Land Acquisition (Rehabilitation and Resettlement) Act, 2013, according to which compensation will be twice the circle rate of the area. Based on that calculation, Rs 63 crore will go into acquiring the land parcel,” the official said.Terminal officials said work would begin after physical possession of the land. “Apart from expansion of the terminal building, we will also enhance the parking bay area, for which a DPR will be commissioned,” an official said.The expansion will add check-in counters beyond the existing eight, expand aircraft parking bays from the current two, enhance security and screening infrastructure, and improve road access and drop-off zones.As an interim measure, the Airports Authority of India has already commenced expansion of the terminal building by about 700 sq metres within land already in its possession, which will raise passenger throughput to approximately 450 per hour. The terminal has also doubled its seating capacity and upgraded security systems.To improve connectivity to the terminal, Ghaziabad Development Authority has separately asked the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to prepare a detailed project report for a proposed 16-kilometre metro corridor linking Vaishali on the Blue Line to Gokulpuri in northeast Delhi via the Hindon Civil Terminal. The proposed corridor, with seven stations, would pass through Sahibabad, Mohan Nagar, Pasunda and Gagan Vihar.The terminal building, spread over 22,250 sq metres within a 42,000 sq metre complex, was originally designed to handle 300 passengers per hour when it opened in 2019 with 8,000 annual footfalls. That figure rose to 80,000 earlier this year as four airlines were operating on 21 routes. However, flight operations have dropped to seven since Jan after Air India Express withdrew its services entirely.IndiGo too has scaled down operations to five routes — Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Varanasi and Patna — cutting four routes to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Varanasi and Indore. Star Air serves Adampur and Nanded, with its Mundra service yet to commence.