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The long-awaited runway expansion plan of the Tiruchi International Airport is expected to take off soon as the airport authorities have set in motion the process of getting necessary approvals from the Airports Authority of India (AAI). Disclosing this to The Hindu here on Wednesday, S.S. Raju who took charge as the Airport Director recently, said that the ‘schedule of works’ for the expanding the runway from the about 8,100 to 12,500 feet has been sent to the AAI headquarters for approval by its board. The runway expansion is envisaged at an investment of about ₹230 crore. The move comes in the wake of the State government handing over a major portion of the land required for the airport expansion. District Collector V. Saravanan, after a recent site inspection, had told the airport authorities that they can go ahead with the runway expansion and urged them to expedite the process. Mr. Saravanan had said that 285.48 acres of patta land out of 298.82 acres had been acquired for the project and the government order on the acquisition of the remaining 7.67 acres of land would be issued soon. This apart, 166.97 acres of Defence land and 5.82 acres of government poromboke land has been handed over to the AAI. Mr. Raju said that tenders would be called soon for building a perimeter wall around the land handed over to the AAI. After the first phase of extension of the runway from 6,000 ft. to about 8,100 feet, carried out about 15 years ago, the AAI had planned to expand it further to 12,500 feet. International transit The airport authorities have also restored international-to-international passenger transit facility, which had remained suspended following the commissioning of the new terminal at the airport. According to airport sources, the facility was suspended due to shortage of Central Industrial Security Force personnel. However, the facility has been restored now with the available strength. Representatives of the travel industry have been pressing for the reintroduction of the facility for benefit of passengers, especially for those flying to Singapore from destinations such as Dubai, Muscat, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and others. Tiruchi MP Durai Vaiko, who had taken up the plea with the Civil Aviation Minister, welcomed the move and said it could make the airport a transit hub.
