Chennai's second airport likely at Parandur

Chennai is about to get a second airport in the area of Parandhur at Kancheepuram district, and the proposed airport site is only 60 km away from Chennai’s first airport at Meenambakkam. Some sources say that the Tamilnadu government has requested the central government for approval of this Greenfield airport project and it is likely to get approved in March or April of this year. 

According to what we know, initially, the state government had proposed two locations Parandhur and Mamandur and sent for review to Airports Authority of India shortly know as AAI for the assessment process. The airport authority of India, after some research and analysis, decided to reject Mamandur as an optimal location for the new airport construction.

Parandhur is likely to be optimal, but AAI still has to analyze and do feasibility tests and such to bring this project into full force. So the clearance and authorization are yet to come. Sources say that over 4500 acres have been founded at Parandhur which is predicted to be for airport construction. 

To speed up the decision-making process the senior bureaucrats had a meeting with the chief minister of Tamilnadu and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Limited (Tidco) will request the consultant to speed track the approval of the project. The government will make known the identity of the consultant in the next two months, along with the location of the project.

This proposed airport project is expected to reduce the overcrowding of people in the Meenambakkam airport, and the previous year recorded the highest number of people using the Chennai airport causing a need to develop new ones to reduce the burden and enhance the overall passenger experience.

The state government acquired only 50 percentile of the land and another 50 % still needs approval and yet to be acquired. Another hindrance is to get all the required authorizations and permissions from the central government as well. If the new airport projects get approved, it not only makes travelling easier but also contributes to the economic growth of the country and provides employment opportunities, and even sustainable developmental activities surrounding the airport.

The PPP model likely to be executed in the construction of the project, PPP is abbreviated as Public-Private Partnership, which means the funding and management of the project will be from both public partner which is the government in this case and a private corporation.

The local services such as land transport, nearby hotels, and close by residential properties will see a hike of development within the range of the new airport, so this could be an excellent expansion activity in the city.