The Rs 14,600 crore metro Rail project being constructed across the city will be completed by 2015, Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin said here today.
“The work for providing a metro rail for Chennai is under implementation. The first phase of the project will cover a distance of 45.1 kms, of which 24 km will be underground,” he said after inaugurating the CII Seminar titled “Chennai 2020“.
He also referred to the government decision to extend the project by another 22 km and said nine more stations will be constructed in this phase.
The Airports Authority of India will construct domestic, international and a secondary runway at the Chennai Airport to cater to greater passenger and cargo traffic by 2020.
“Passenger traffic at Chennai airport is expected to touch 27.6 million tons and cargo traffic 10.4 lakh tons by 2020,” Mr. Stalin said.
“A greenfield airport to cater to the projected traffic by 2020 is very much necessary and the Government is working towards this,” the Deputy Chief Minister said.
The decision to set up a greenfield airport is in line with development of an Aero Park to promote Chennai as a Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul destination for aircrafts, since the current facility does not meet the demands, he said.
Mr. Stalin also said that a plant similar to the Minjur desalination plant with capacity of 100 Million Litres a Day (MLD) will be set up under Public-Private-Partnership mode.
“Another 100 MLD desalination plant in the public sector is coming up at Nemmeli. We have also appointed a consultant to identify a suitable source in the state which will augment supply of 15 TMC (Thousand Million Cubic feet) to meet the demand in the next 15-20 years,” he added.
