Tamil Nadu’s capital city Chennai will soon have its second airport near Parandur against an estimated expense of Rs 20,000 Crores, as announced by the Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin. The new airport will have two runways, a cargo terminal, apron, taxiways and other such required amenities to handle an annual footfall of over 3.5 crore passengers. "The plan estimate for the new airport will be finalised after preparing the detailed project report (DPR). The tentative plan estimate as of now is Rs 20,000 crore," the chief minister said.


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The implementation of the project by the DMK government would be a stepping stone for the state's growth and yet another effort in taking it towards the USD one trillion state economy target, he added.


The present airport could handle 2.2 crore passengers annually and this could go up to 3.5 crores at the end of the ongoing expansion work after 7 years.


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Considering the growing passenger and cargo volume, state-run TIDCO took up the work of identifying land for another airport. Four sites were selected and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) recommended two out of them and finally, Parandur was zeroed in, Stalin said.


The existing and the proposed airport will operate jointly, he noted.


Approval for site clearance will be sent to the Centre soon and after securing it, the land acquisition process will be started, the CM informed.


After that, the in-principle approval will be sought from the union government.


The CM said the ruling DMK was taking forward the "Dravidian model" of growth, where the state's development in the future will be compared with other countries.


With inputs from PTI