AAI seeks 5,000 acres for new Chennai airport

Chennai: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has informed the state government of Tamil Nadu that it was prepared to construct a second airport for Chennai, located at Sriperumbudur, provided 5,000 acres of land was made available for the purpose.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has cleared the new airport project in its feasibility study earlier.

AAI chairman VP Agrawal handed over ICAO's report to chief secretary Debendranath Sarangi on Saturday. "We have asked for 5,000 acres of land which will be needed to construct the new airport. In the first phase, runways and other facilities will be constructed. Around Rs5,000 crore will be needed for the project," Agrawal said.

The civil aviation ministry had earlier announced that construction of the new airport would not be handed over to the private sector. According to AAI sources, the government would now decide whether to construct a new airport or to build a parallel runway at the existing airport.

With capacity at the existing airport reaching saturation point, the AAI had initially proposed the construction of a parallel runway. However, it was realised that the cost of land acquisition would be prohibitively high.

So, a new airport was proposed and the previous DMK government identified land at Sriperumbudur for the new project. An AAI study found the land suitable for the project.

The AAI has assured the state government that ongoing expansion works at the existing airport would be completed as per the new schedule.

The new domestic terminal would be ready by December this year while the international terminal would be commissioned by January 2012, he added.