AAI takes steps to obtain eco clearance for phase II modernisation of Chennai Airport

Phase-I of modernisation of the airport is completed, said Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Dr Mahesh Sharma in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha

Airports Authority of India (AAI) has taken steps to obtain environment clearance for the Phase II modernisation of Chennai Airport. It has earlier completed the phase-I of modernisation work at Chennai Airport has and created maximum additional capacity of 14 million passengers per annum (mppa) (Domestic 10 mppa and International 4 mppa) within the available land over & above the existing passenger handling capacity of 9 mppa.

Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Dr Mahesh Sharma in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today said that AAI has taken steps for appointment of Consultant for Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) study for obtaining Environment Clearance for the project and of Project Managment Consultant (PMC) for Phase-II modernisation of Chennai Airport.

With the government deciding to deviate from its earlier plan of Public Private Partnership (PPP) for our airports, the Airport Authority of India (AAI) has decided to go for expansion and maintenance of the Chennai and Kolkata Airports on its own, while the Jaipur and Ahmedabad airports would be put on operation and maintenance (O&M) contract route.

It may be noted that the airport, which was earlier planned to develop throuh public private partnership model, was taken up for further expansion and maintainance by the government in August, this year. The government has asked AAI to go ahead with the development and operation and management of the airport and plans are to restructure the Chennai Airport, by increasing the capacity of the airport and the unway, with an investment of around Rs 1,000 crore, said a senior official in AAI then.

The expansion has been taken up a few years back with an investment of over Rs 2,000 crore and the Phase I was completed, which helped increase the capacity from nine million passengers per annum to 23 million passengers, adding 14 million passengers per annum.

However, the development was in such a way that the new international terminal and the domestic terminal were on the either ends of the old terminals, which created hardship to the users. The intention was to leave the work for the private player who was expected to join through a PPP model. With the restructuring plan, the two new terminals will be merged by reconstructing the old terminals, thus improving the total capacity to 30 million passengers, or even 34 million per annum, said Raheja. The airport has a limitation on the runway side and it would work on the issue to have more takeoffs per hour, it was reported earlier.