Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the first phase of the new integrated terminal building at Chennai airport on Saturday. The new terminal will enhance the airport’s capacity to 27 million passengers per year.
PM Modi on Thursday said that the new state of the art integrated terminal building at Chennai Airport will be an important addition to the city’s infrastructure.
The new terminal, which covers a total area of 1.97 lakh square metres, will cater to international arrivals and departures. The building boasts a spacious and well-equipped design, with better architecture that is expected to be passenger-friendly. It will feature 80 check-in counters, eight self-check-in counters, six self-baggage drop counters and 108 immigration counters.
The new terminal has been designed in accordance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s thrust on development that combines modernisation with traditional culture. The terminal building is adorned with traditional kolams and the false ceiling has a distinctive pattern of the folds of a saree to highlight the art and culture of Tamil Nadu.
The newly integrated terminal building is being built in two phases, at a cost of Rs 2,467 crore. The first phase has been completed and the second phase is expected to be completed by December 2024.
After the completion of both terminals, the capacity will be increased to 35 million passengers per annum with 45 aircraft movements per hour. Meanwhile, there has been little progress on the acquisition of land for the expansion of the airport.
The Modi government has ambitious plans for the development airport infrastructure in the country that will see an investment of Rs 1 lakh crore being made by Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the private sector in the next 2-3 years. This includes investments for developing new airports as well as expansion and modernisation of existing airports.
The country’s aviation sector is growing rapidly and India has now become the third largest aviation market in the world.
According to Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, steps are being taken for creating aviation hubs include airports exploring new technologies like Automated People Mover system and intelligent solutions for congestion management, and airports improving their infrastructure to reduce transfer time/ minimum connection time.
Airlines are also working to increase their fleet size and inducting wide body aircraft.
