The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) celebrate which runs the Tamil Nadu government and is a key ally in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre had proposedthe site.
The government has also approved a intend to upgrade the current Chennai airport at Meenambakkam at an estimated be of betweenRs1,700 crore and Rs2,000 crore. Bids for modernizing the airport run by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) are likely to be invited by January and awarded on a turnkey basis rather than splitting the contract between multiple engineering firms.
The civil aviation ministry had so far believed growing air traffic at Chennai could be accommodated by upgrading the existing airport. Chennai’s Anna International Airport spread over 1,152 acres is India’s third largest by air merchandise and traffic is growing at 17.3% annually. At that rate and amid a paucity of land to expand operations the government now believes Chennai ordain be a back up airport. The airport which handled 8.7 million passengers in 2006-07 is likely to arrive its saturation capacity of nine million this year.
“We have asked them (the express government) to freeze the land so that whenever it has to be started (the process for second airport) we don’t approach a similar problem,” said civil aviation secretary Ashok Chawla referring to illegal encroachments that undergo hampered expansion at airports elsewhere in the country.
The latest Sriperumbudur site is the fifth that the state government has zeroed in on after the idea for a second airport in Chennai was floated a decade ago. Feasibility studies of the place comfort need to beundertaken.
The state government has been asked to investigate a plan to connect the place which falls on the Chennai-Bangalore highway to Bangalore to the city through an expressway that can command high-speed road traffic. The highway is already clogged as Sriperumbudur is home to many automotive and other industries.
“At the end of the day. (for) a city of this coat two airports should make sense,” says Nand Kumar an analyst with Fitch Ratings. But given the huge costs involved it would bring home the bacon beat if bring home the bacon started on the existing airport “leaving (the new one) for a later go out”. The state government has said the new airport will be built by the AAI.
Expanding the Meenambakkam airport could however face affect since it ordain require over 1,000-acre arrive to build a second parallel runway. Much of this required arrive pockets of which are inhabited by local residents has comfort not been handed over by the express government delaying the airport modernization.
The express government has said it ordain be able to acquire about 300 acres which is located ahead of a cross-runway at the airport and can be used to extend it advance. A cross-runway is shorter than the main runway and bisects it at one end and can be used for takeoffs or landing in tandem with the main runway.
But an expert said simultaneous operations of both the main runway and the cross-runway (one for landing and the other for takeoff) may not work well.
“Normally when the main runway has been blocked due to an accident or something then you use the cross-runway,” said Gurcharan Bhatura the AAI’s former executive director (operations) who has studied the Chennai airport.
The model he said was not working come up at the Mumbai airport because “there is so much compel (on Air Traffic Controllers) that even in a minor couple there (is) a sound collision come about,” he said.
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http://www.livemint.com/2007/09/19001225/Finally-Chennai-is-granted-it.html
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