Parandur in Kancheepuram district is now being considered as a favourable site for the city’s second airport.
Highly placed sources said, nearly 4,700 acres have been identified at Parandur and 12 adjoining villages and, so far, the initial findings don’t indicate any serious hurdles to the construction of an airport. The proposed site is nearly 60 km from the existing airport and it will take a passenger about an hour and a half to travel from the existing airport to Parandur.
A final clearance is required from the Airports Authority of India (AAI), which is likely to come in a week’s time, a source said.
“The acquisition of land will pose some challenges. Only 50% of the land is with the State government. The rest needs to be acquired,” he said.
Recently, the State government had requested a team of officials from AAI to visit two sites — Mamandur and Parandur. The team carried out an initial study to look at the feasibility of building an airport at one of these two locations.
“There is a waterbody close to the site identified in Mamandur; it is not impossible, but it may be challenging to build the airport and the infrastructure for it,” another source said.
Next, a techno-feasibility study has to be done by AAI, which will look at a series of finer details and scrutinise every aspect involved with building an airport. This apart, once a site is finalised, there are many other approvals to be obtained.
Sources said that the new airport will be built in PPP mode.
