MADURAI: To avoid the seclusion of Madurai Ring Road while commencing expansion works of the Madurai airport runway, the state government must construct an underpass on the NH road in the area, said the Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Urging Chief Minister MK Stalin to take action towards this, chamber president Dr N Jegatheesan issued a release on Saturday.
The Madurai airport runway is currently about 7,500 feet long. It was planned to expand it to a length of 12,500 feet in 2009, and after about 13 years, the state government acquired 615.92 acres and handed it over to the Airport Authority of India (AAI) free of cost in 2022.
"Madurai Ring Road will be cut off when the runway expansion works begin. Due to this, vehicles travelling from Madurai via NH 45B to Chennai, south TN districts and Kerala via NH 7 will face great difficulty. They will have to take 8-km detours, leading to time and fuel wastage. Therefore, it was decided during a review meeting chaired by the district collector, to expand the runway of Madurai airport without affecting the ring road. The plan to move vehicles below the road and build a runway above it was finalised and sent to the AAI. The underpass project was subsequently approved by the AAI," the release read.
"To construct the underpass for about 2 km for the runway expansion, the cost was estimated at `800 crore. It is learnt that the state highway department officials are insisting that the runway expansion be executed by constructing an alternate route of 8 km on the ring road, instead of an underpass. As the state government has not initiated any preliminary work to acquire the land required for constructing the alternative route, the Madurai airport runway expansion project may be delayed for many more years. So, we urge the Chief Minister to immediately intervene in the matter," they added.