Amidst talks of Chennai’s second airport site being finalised at Parandur in Kancheepuram, the state government is now contemplating a new site between Kancheepuram and Cheyyar for the second airport.
According to a report by Sangeetha Kandavel and Sunitha Sekar in The Hindu, the file that was sent for signing to a top officer in the government came back without being signed, prompting the state government officials to consider a second option for the upcoming airport.
Following this, the Thiruvannamalai district collector has been told to conduct a preliminary land survey near Cheyyar. The new site, which will be around 75 kilometres from the existing airport at Chennai, is being considered since the government already has possession of around 1500 acres of land there. This would mean that the government would have to acquire the minimum possible land from private landowners. After the survey, the state government is planning to ask the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to conduct another study to see if this is a feasible option. The union ministry of Civil Aviation had specified that the second airport for Chennai would need at least 3500 acres of land to handle the growing passenger traffic in the city.
In Parandur, only 50% of the site was in the government’s possession and the government would have to acquire the remaining land from private landowners if the airport was to come up at that site. Another site which was considered with Parandur earlier was Mamandur. However, it was dropped out of consideration for the site for Chennai’s second airport since the proposed site had a water body close to it which might cause hindrances in operations and expansions.
As per an earlier report, the existing airport at Meenambakkam, Chennai has the capacity to handle passenger traffic of upto 150 lakh. However, in the previous year, the passenger traffic had touched around 220 lakh, thus pressing the need for another airport.