Kolkata, Chennai seeks new runways

New Delhi: The West Bengal government has asked the aviation ministry to study if the NSCBI Airport could get another runway to meet the growing traffic requirement. The Centre had recently approved the modernisation of this airport by the Airports Authority of India and the feasibility of a greenfield one was to be studied. But with greenfield airports being built by private players, the Left government wants to study if the existing airport's capacity could be enhanced.
In a similar move, Tamil Nadu government has offered 1,100 acres of land for expanding the existing Chennai airport for building one more runway. Chennai, like Kolkata, has two runways but they are merging towards one side. The AAI has to see if another runway can be built here too.
The authority is also sending a team to Chennai to study the sites for the second city airport. While Sriperumbudur seems to be a hot favourite site for the second airport, the team will inspect three other places also. The aviation ministry is going ahead with these studies very fast as the work of modernising Kolkata and Chennai airport has to begin by the deadline of next January.
04/08/07 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Aug 2007, New Aug 2007