Chennai airport expansion takes off

The Rs 1,212-crore Chennai airport expansion project is moving at a rapid pace. On Monday, work began on the building of an elevated road that will touch the passenger terminals; while work to construct a new domestic terminal started a couple of weeks ago. According to Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials, construction was going on in different parts of the airport campus so that the work could be completed by 2011, the deadline. Land has been marked and earth being moved to prepare the ground for building a new 74,500-square metre domestic terminal. It will have two floors — first floor for departure and the ground floor for arrivals. “Some of the facilities inside the airport campus have been moved to facilitate the construction work. Gate no. 1 used by airline staff and VIPs has been moved closer to the AAI administrative building,” an AAI official said. However, work on building a new international terminal spread out over 65,000 square feet is yet to start because it will occupy 21 acres of defence land that still needs to be transferred to AAI. “Steps are underway to procure the land. As per the arrangement, AAI would assist the defence ministry to relocate some of the installations on those 21 acres of land. We have already started constructing a building for the defence at an alternative site in Pallavaram,” the AAI official said. The AAI would soon have another round of meeting with defence ministry officials to finalise transfer of the land. The expansion project is being executed by Consolidated Construction Consortium Limited (CCCL) in technical collaboration with Canadian infrastructure company Herve Pomerleau International. It is expected to be completed in 26 months. Once the project is complete, Chennai airport will become world-class, with passengers lounging in steel-andglass terminals that will have natural lighting and using an in-campus flyover that will take them directly to the first floor departure areas at the domestic and international terminals. They will benefit from a a multi-level car park and also choose from a host of recreational activities while waiting for the boarding call. “We will follow the design handed over to us by the AAI,” said an official of CCCL. Their technical collaborators, Herve Pomerleau International, have the experience of doing up the Montreal airport. The new terminals will be equipped to handle 16 million passengers a year