The Hindu Business Line : TN agrees to provide land for new airport

The Civil Aviation Ministry has approved the new international airport project and the State Government has also agreed to hand over the land required for it.

According to a Tamil Nadu Government pressrelease, the Government has agreed to hand over 1,457.5 acres of land to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for the setting up a new international airport in Chennai.

Following a representation to the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, by the Chief Minister, Ms Jayalalithaa in September 2004, the Centre had approved the proposal for a new airport in Chennai. The Ministry had written to the State Government on April 21, 2005, stating that the Centre has approved the project and that the State will have to give 1,457.5 acres land to the north of the existing airport free to the Airports Authority of India to implement this project.

While agreeing to give the land for the project, the State Government has urged the Centre to expedite the project, the release said.

It has been Tamil Nadu's case that Chennai requires a new international airport, given that the city is the gateway to South and South-East Asia. While Hyderabad and Bangalore got approvals for new airports, Chennai did not. The AAI felt that decongesting the existing airport would more than take care of the projected demand in international air passenger traffic.

Sixteen international airlines, including Air India and Indian Airlines, now operate flights from Chennai with Delta Airlines of the US scheduled to begin direct services to the US from May. Besides, other global airlines are also keen to start flights to Chennai and those operating services would like to increase their frequencies.

It may be recalled that this revives a long pending project for a new international airport in Chennai. In 2000 the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation, which had commissioned the UK-based consultants Scott, Wilson and Kirkpatrick, to do a feasibility report for the project, made a presentation to the Civil Aviation Ministry and AAI , putting forth a case for a new airport in Chennai that will take care of the needs till 2050.

At that time the international terminal was handling about 18 lakh passengers a year against its capacity of seven lakh. Further, the State's reasoning was that a new airport would catalyse industry and tourism and Chennai could be developed as a transit point for traffic between Far East Asia and West Asia.

The State Government was hoping to put in place enough capacity to handle international passenger and cargo growth up to 2040-50. At that time the project was expected cost about Rs 1,800 crore with the State Government, Civil Aviation Ministry, AAI and outside investors taking a stake. The idea was to set up a new terminal initially and use the existing runway till 2005 and get a second runway by 2010 for domestic/international flights.

The consultants had pegged traffic to touch 15 million by 2030. Commercial utilisation of space was expected to account for 50 per cent of the airport's income. The Government was to ask the consultants to go ahead with the next phase of study for technical details, financing and revenue models and bid formats once the authorities cleared the initial report.

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