The Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials are concerned over the delay in handing over of a building belonging to defence authorities at the Chennai airport premises.
A senior AAI official said already fifty per cent of equipment such as power generators, air-conditioning plant, chiller units required for setting up the central sub-station and air-conditioner plants have been imported.
An AAI officer said despite all the discussions and meetings at the highest level, including a meeting with the Defence Minister, there was no forward movement on this issue. Defence authorities have not vacated the building and it is being guarded by armed personnel in three shifts. They were also not allowing the demolition of the building, the officer pointed out. On its part, the State government also had taken efforts to sort out the issue with the defence authorities, which has not so far yielded positive results. The delay in handing over of the defence land would adversely affect the commissioning of new domestic and international terminal buildings, as the electrical sub-station and the air conditioning plant have been proposed by the AAI.
Apart from the sub-station and air-conditioning plant, utility cable trench is also planned through that space and the AAI authorities were unable to take up that work also. Added to that is the laying of an approach road to the newly coming up international terminal building, which has been included in the original plan of AAI. Another high-level meeting has been planned, which is expected to take place in New Delhi on Monday. “At leas, in that meeting if a consensus is arrived at, the delay in commissioning the new terminal buildings could be reduced to a great extent,” the officer added.
