About Rs 20,000 crore will be invested in a greenfield airport near Chennai, says Tamil Nadu's vision 2023 document.

The second airport proposed in the auto cluster of Sriperumbudur, about 40 km west off Chennai, will span 4,800 acres. The feasibility report is with the State Government. Once work on this airport starts, it is expected to be completed by 2020.

Passenger Traffic

The annual passenger traffic at the existing airport in Chennai is 12 million. It is estimated to double by 2020. “But the airport will reach saturation by 2016-17 itself, thus causing a strain on operations and prompting the need for another airport,” says Mr E.P. Hareendranathan, Airport Director.

Currently, the existing airport handles about 325 aircraft movements a day. Even with the expansion, it will be able to handle only 500 movements by 2020.

According to the document released by the Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa, the Greenfield airport complex will be equipped to handle 40 million passengers.

The new airport, which could have even four runways, will help Chennai to be on par with Delhi and Mumbai airports, he said. “We could even handle the largest aircraft [Airbus 380] in Chennai then,” he said.

Aviation park

An aviation park is expected to come up near the Sriperumbudur airport. This project is still in the preliminary stage.

The document also says that an investment of around Rs 5,000 crore will be required to upgrade existing airports in Coimbatore, Tiruchi and Madurai to international standards with a capacity of 10 million each.

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