Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on August 2, Tuesday announced that a second airport for the city would come up at Parandur near Chennai at an estimated Rs 20,000 crore with an annual capacity of 10 crore passengers. It will have two runways, terminal buildings, taxiways, apron, cargo terminal and other required amenities.
"The plan estimate for the new airport will be finalised after preparing the detailed project report (DPR). The tentative plan estimate as of now is Rs 20,000 crore," the chief minister said in a statement here.
The implementation of the project by the DMK government would be a stepping stone for the state's growth and yet another effort in taking it towards the USD one trillion state economy target, he added. The present airport could handle 2.2 crore passengers annually and this could go up to 3.5 crore at the end of the ongoing expansion work after 7 years.
Considering the growing passenger and cargo volume, state-run TIDCO took up the work of identifying land for another airport. Four sites were selected and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) recommended two out of them and finally Parandur was zeroed in, Stalin said. The existing and the proposed airport will operate jointly, he noted.
Approval for site clearance will be sent to the Centre soon and after securing it, the land acquisition process will be started, the CM informed. After that the in-principle approval will be sought from the union government.
The CM said the ruling DMK was taking forward the "Dravidian model" of growth, where the state's development in the future will be compared with other countries.