The quality of construction of the Chennai airport is “shoddy”, Union Minister for Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju said here on Monday.
“It is definitely shoddy. Not only Chennai, but also Kolkata and Goa. In Kolkata, a constable lost his life and in Goa a passenger had his foot cut because of the falling glass panels,” he said. Whether or not to recover the money from the contractors concerned for the shoddy work was the Airports Authority of India's call, he added.
The Ministry was in a very advanced stage of finalising the new civil aviation policy. Once it was ready, it would place it in the public domain for comments. Thereafter, the Ministry would finalise the policy.
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On improving air connectivity from Coimbatore and other Indian cities to destinations abroad, Mr. Raju said that airline companies were sitting on unused “bilaterals” (bilateral agreements to fly to foreign destinations). If they were to use those bilaterals, it would definitely improve air connectivity.
In response to a question on the Coimbatore airport expansion plan, he said land acquisition was a State subject. If the State government came forward to give the required land, the Ministry would not have a problem in expanding the airport, Mr. Raju said.
The Civil Aviation Ministry would be open to proposal from the State government on heliport for the Nilgiris, he later told reporters in Ooty.
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In Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, heliports were in use and Pawan Hans and private players used those. As for Ooty, he said he would leave it to the market forces to see if it was financially viable to operate helicopters from there to the nearest cities.
Airport director’s response
Chennai Airport director Deepak Shastri, in response to the Minister’s remarks, said “there were some short-comings. Some of them have already been rectified and the rest will soon be corrected. The order from the Centre to go ahead with the development of the airport came up only recently. So, we hope to sort the remaining issues very soon.”