Defence land sought for Chennai airport expansion

By T.S. Shankar

CHENNAI, OCT. 18. The Civil Aviation Ministry has written to the Defence Ministry urging it to help to acquire over 19 acres of defence land, adjacent to the Anna International Terminal (AIT) here, for expediting expansion.

Highly-placed sources in the Ministry told The Hindu that the Union Communications and Information Technology Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, had also taken up the matter along with a proposal to include the Chennai AIT in the Airports Authority of India's (AAI) modernisation programme. This was done soon after the Ministry cleared modernisation plans for the Delhi and Mumbai airports.

The AAI is also examining the request for providing more parking bays in the AIT. The AAI board has approved additional aerobridges. An official said the Chennai AIT and the Karipur airport in Kozhikode were chosen "experimental airports" to test-run state-of-the-art "online baggage screening system."

The process of Expression of Interest has already been initiated by the AAI for implementing the system.

On improvements to the "operational side" of the Chennai airport, the sources said the calibration process of the "reciprocal Instrument Landing Systems (ILS) antenna would be commissioned soon. The ILS would facilitate landing or takeoff from both directions of the main runway. Now only one end has this facility.

Meteorological services

A recent high-level meeting of a task force, with experts from the AAI, the Indian Meteorological department and Civil Aviation Ministry representatives, agreed to bring the aviation meteorological services within the AAI ambit.

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