DMK Seeks Site Clearance From Centre For New Greenfield Airport In Chennai

Rajya Sabha member from Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam P Wilson on Wednesday met Union Minister for Civil Aviation Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu in New Delhi and sought the latter's intervention to expedite the pending site clearance for the new greenfield airport proposed for Chennai in Parandur in Kancheepuram district.

In a letter to the central minister, the parliamentarian from Tamil Nadu said that the state government under MK Stalin is committed to establishing a new greenfield airport in Parandur on a land mass of 4,970 acres.

The Tamil Nadu government decided in 2022 to establish a greenfield airport at Parandur. Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Limited (TIDCO), acting as the nodal agency for this project, submitted the site clearance application to the Ministry of Civil Aviation on August 19, 2022.

This proposed project, as per the letter of the parliamentarian, is designed to handle up to 100 million passengers annually and is crucial for the economic development of Chennai and the entire state.

The DMK parliamentarian asserted that if site clearance is granted, Phase - I, with an annual capacity of 20 million passengers, is expected to be commissioned by January 2029.

The currently operation airport -- Chennai International Airport -- at Meenambakkam is operating near its capacity limits and with no modern infrastructure is struggling to accommodate the increasing passenger and cargo traffic, underscoring the urgency of developing this new airport, Wilson said.

"In addition, the present airport is not equipped to handle large planes with a capacity of more than 400 passengers and double-decker planes. Many long-haul, wide-body international flights don't prefer Chennai Meenambakkam airport as the "preferred point of call" for foreign carriers due to the lack of infrastructure and modern updated facilities. Furthermore, Chennai Airport is not classified as a code F Airport to land an A380 aircraft and neighbouring airports like Bengaluru and Hyderabad can handle these sophisticated carriers," said the parliamentarian.

Also, the currently operational airport lacks a sufficient number of aerobridges that can be used to dock large planes, meaning that passengers cannot be disembarked in remote parking bays. Wilson reasoned that moving so many people by shuttle buses would be inefficient for the airlines.

"This situation has forced international operators seeking to expand their flight operations in Chennai to opt for alternative airports such as Bangalore and Hyderabad over Chennai. As a consequence, flight frequencies to Asian, African, European and other foreign destinations have decreased, despite the increasing demand from the public," he further asserted.

To make matters worse, he claimed that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) replaced Chennai airport with Hyderabad and Bangalore airports as Points of Collateral (POC) for several countries. This, he said, makes it unlikely that Chennai will get flights to such countries in the near future.

"Chennai Airport is losing much aerospace-related business to its neighbouring airports in different states, which is detrimental to the economic growth of Tamil Nadu and future generation growth, including employment and investment in to this state will be heavily impeded," he added.

"Necessary clarifications and studies have also been submitted. However, the project is pending site clearance before the "steering committee" constituted under the Green Field Airport Policy. Despite the significance of the project, the site clearance has been pending for more than 500 days, stalling the project's progress. The Parandur airport complies with all the requirements and guidelines for setting up green field airports set out by the Ministry of Civil Aviation Govt of India," he noted, as he reiterated the need for an expedition of the site clearance process.

The DMK parliamentarian has also acknowledged that the Minister has assured him that he will look into this immediately.

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