Airports Authority of India mulls to invest Rs 1,400 crore on Chennai Airport expansion

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has drawn up plans to invest Rs 1,400 crore for further expansion of Chennai Airport and setting up an modern air traffic control (ATC) tower at Kolkata Airport as the state-run operator swings back into action with the government having dropped its airport privatisation plans .

A senior AAI official confirmed that as part of the second phase of the expansion plans, the domestic and international terminals at Chennai airport are being integrated for facilitating passengers. AAI has initiated the process of appointing a project management consultant for this purpose. The entire (integration) work is expected to involve an investment of around Rs 1,000 crore.

AAI has also drawn up a plan to set up a new ATC Tower at Kolkata airport by investing Rs 300-Rs 400 crore, the official said.

Besides, AAI has appointed engineering consultancy firm RITES as project management consultant for the city side development of Lucknow, Raipur and Tirupati airports as it would help these airports earn additional revenue and minimise their operational losses.

The city-side constitutes commercial facilities around the airport for the benefit of passengers like development of property on the airports' land, building and maintaining car parking and cargo operations among others.

Many of the airports are not getting through output to offset their operational losses. The development of hotels, restaurants, parking spaces and aviation companies' offices around them would strengthen their top line, the official said. These projects would be funded through internal accruals as well as by raising debt from the market. The government had earlier planned to hand over Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Kolkata airports to private players for their development, management and operations after AAI had invested Rs 5,000 crore in their modernisation and upgradation. However, it had to drop the plan due to vehement opposition from the AAI unions.

(In association with Mail Today)