Three years after the first phase modernisation of the Chennai airport, the second round of work is all set to start soon with a whopping budget of Rs. 2,300 crore to increase passenger and aircraft movement.
Airport director Deepak Shastri said they have extensive plans to build various infrastructural facilities for the airport including solar panels, expanding the domestic and international terminals and construction of multi-level car parking. It may take at least 2-3 years to complete phase II.
“We will soon appoint consultants to plan this project and take the opinion of various stakeholders. We want to increase the aircraft movement from 29 per hour to 40 and then, the passenger capacity to 30 million,” he said.
Besides this, the work for 1.7 MW rooftop power project has started and they have identified 8.5 acres of land. This work is likely to be complete by March next year. Also, there will be ground-based panels for which 30 acres of land have been identified and that project will be done by July next year.
For the Global Investors’ Meet scheduled to take place in the first week of September, there have been slew of measures to improve the upkeep of airport. There will be renovation of toilets at a cost of Rs. 25 lakh, deep cleaning of the entire terminal at a cost of Rs. 76 lakh, horticulture works at Rs. 10 lakh and other similar works in the terminals.
An app to complain
Acknowledging the amount of complaints for the Chennai airport, the officials have now decided to launch a mobile app and a Facebook account where people can directly send feedback and reach the authorities.
Officials of Airports Authority of India (AAI) said the app will be launched on the Android platform within a fortnight and subsequently in Apple and Windows platforms. “From various amenities for passengers to access to the websites of various airlines, the app will have everything that passengers require. They can send feedback to us and all officials will be able to see it. ,” an official said.
Also, there will be a map in the app that will guide the passengers through the airport. “We will get feedback first after launching the app and then add this map facility,” the official said. In the last six months, there were 54 complaints received by the airport. Passengers may contact the following numbers in case of a problem: 22563600/22563100
