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A new domestic terminal at Chennai airport would be ready only by October as against the previous deadline of June, said V P Agrawal, Chairman of Airports Authority of India (AAI). Citing various reasons for delay in work, he put some blame on the defence authorities as well. “The cabling could not be done because the defence people did not hand over the important land across the terminal where we had planned to put our electrical substation. Also, this airport is presently in operation. So, things are a bit difficult,” he said.

Executive director for terminal project S Bahaduri pitched in to say that most of the workers from West Bengal had gone back to cast their votes in the elections. “Work on the international terminal was stalled when some rocky strata could not be blasted using dynamite. But we are on track with the project as we had promised that the new terminals will be ready in 26 man-months and October is the stipulated time of completion,” he maintained.

On the funds involved, Agrawal said the project cost had escalated by 15 per cent over time. “Our budget was Rs 1,808 crore. But now, it has gone up to Rs 2,105 crore. However, there is no cash crunch,” he said.

Asked whether the jump in project cost would be passed on to the air passengers, Agrawal said the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority would decide the development fee. “When Hyderabad and Bangalore are charging it, why not Chennai?” he asked.

About the delay in opening the secondary runway, the AAI chairman said a list of hurdles involved in the project has been submitted to the State government.

“Some telecom towers and houses in the approach path of runway 12 need to be taken care of. I am looking forward to open at least the portion before the Adyar river -- about 2,600 metres -- within three months,” he said.

He also admitted that talks on new airport or the parallel runway remained frozen for the past eight months owing to elections. “I will meet the Chief Secretary in this regard. The Sriperumbudur airport is operationally feasible. It is the land acquisition that needs to be taken care of,”he added.

Metro Rail Issue

The AAI chairman gave a vague answer when asked about the Metro Rail line route near the airport.

“The no-objection we gave is valid. However, owing to media hype and criticism from some airlines, Metro Rail authorities have decided to take the rail line run partially underground and come to the road level at its highest point. This will be conclusively discussed in a meeting in New Delhi this month-end. Our no-objection remains accurate, contrary to some media reports,” Agrawal said.

ATC Scales Heights

On the ongoing developments in Air Traffic Control (ATC), he said trials were on at the Chennai ATC for implementation of Autotrack-3. “From May 28, a 72-hour trial will be conducted. The ATC functions will be performed on Autotrack-3, wherein everything will be calculated and directed by the system. We have also initialised integration of radar in six sub-flight information regions,” he added.

- express buzz