The Hindu Business Line : AAI lowers land requirement for Coimbatore runway expansion

THE Airports Authority of India (AAI), which had originally proposed to acquire 114 acres of land for the Coimbatore Peelamedu airport runway expansion project, has now reassessed the land acquisition and brought down the land requirement to 80.92 acres.

The AAI has indicated its revised land needs to the district revenue authorities, which are set on the task of land acquisition on behalf of the former.

Based on this, the revenue department has spelt out the cost estimate for land acquisition at Rs 19.07 crore to the airport authorities.

"We have forwarded the revised land acquisition estimates for the Coimbatore airport expansion to AAI's board of directors which has to approve it," said Mr S.K. Saraswati, Regional Executive Director of AAI, Chennai.

The AAI Regional Executive Director, on an official visit here, told Business Line that it would be difficult to set any time-frame for the completion of land acquisition considering the arduous process of acquisition, including fixation of compensation for land take-over.

He said pending the land acquisition, phase-I of the runway expansion-cum-strengthening work for the Coimbatore airport was underway since only the phase-II work execution needed the earmarked land acquisition.

For the phase-I works, which include re-carpeting and extending the runway up to 300 metres in the southwestern side, will not immediately require any additional land. These works will include setting up an isolation bay for emergency parking of aircraft and relocation of instrument landing system.

The AAI officials said phase-I of the project which would, on completion, have extended the Coimbatore airport's runway length from 7,500 feet currently to 8,500 feet, will be ready for operation by June next year.

Since the runway, after strengthening and lengthening, would be sufficient to handle higher capacity aircraft to and from the Coimbatore airport, the completion of the phase-II expansion work need not be considered "preponderantly" important, according to Mr Saraswati and Mr Vijaykumar, Airport Director, Coimbatore Peelamedu Airport.

With the completion of the first phase with a 8,500 ft runway, we will enable the Coimbatore airport to have the required infrastructure to handle international flights and we hope the airport will attract more flight connectivity, especially direct flights to West Asia, according to Mr Saraswati.

However, phase-II of the expansion work will involve increasing the runway by 400 metres at the eastern side of the airport, taking the total length of the runway to 9,500 ft. But its execution, of course, will depend on how quickly the land acquisition is done.The AAI authorities are looking at the scope of expanding and modernising the Coimbatore airport terminal building, which may be taken up once the runway expansion project goes through.

"The terminal building revamp proposal estimated to cost Rs 20 crore has crossed the planning stage," said Mr Saraswati.

More Stories on : Infrastructure | Airlines | Tamil Nadu

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Centre to take up ATF tax issue with States

TCI to invest Rs 1.5 cr in GPS technology

AAI lowers land requirement for Coimbatore runway expansion

`Manufacturers should leave logistics to service providers'

Kerala is `world of choice' for Emirates

Rosaiah inaugurates Philatelic expo

Long rails project commissioned at Bhilai Steel Plant

Siemens bags GSM-R contract from Indian Rlys

Kerala private bus strike from next week

Gulf Oil opens car care centres in Hyderabad, eyes other cities