The Ministry of Civil Aviation has directed the Airports Authority of India to clear consignments on a 24x7 basis without any “restrictions” from today at the Chennai airport.

The Civil Aviation Secretary Ashok Lavasa gave the direction to AAI officials considering requests made by the Air Cargo Agent Association and Chennai Customs House Agents Association.

“Secretary, MoCA directed AAI to do away with restriction and accordingly AAI has decided to implement the decision of 24x7 clearance of consignment with effect from July three, 2014”, Airport Authority of India said in a statement.

Lavasa yesterday inaugurated the Airport Operations Control Centre (AOCC) here. The Centre at the Chennai Airport is the first in the AOCC implementation undertaken by the AAI.

The AOCC has been envisaged at an investment of Rs 356.04 crore at 10 airports — Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Pune, Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Jaipur, Mangalore, Tiruchi and Guwahati. It has been set up to handle increasing air-traffic and growing competition between airports to improve the service levels.

The AOCC is planned to be manned by all stakeholders involving officials from AAI, airlines, ground handlers and security agencies, the statement said.

The solution involves the implementation of common Airport Operations Data Base for all the 10 airports. The solution is implemented by NIIT and was being done for the first time in the country, it said.

AODB will have the airport specific database of all the 10 airports and would automatically update the flight schedules at all airports using the automatic fixed telecom network and air traffic control messages.

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