The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on Monday passed a resolution seeking to name the new modernised domestic terminal at Chennai International airport after former chief minister and AIADMK founder MG Ramachandran (MGR).
Moving the resolution, chief minister J Jayalalithaa, whose mentor is MGR, urged the Centre to name the terminal after MGR. She said the international and domestic terminals had earlier been named after former chief ministers CN Annadurai and K Kamaraj, respectively
In February, the chief minister had boycotted the inauguration of the Rs 2,015-crore terminal since the Centre was not favourably responding to her demand for naming it after MGR. The terminal started operations on April 11 in full stream with the departure and arrival on the same day.
The Airports Authority of India had earlier said it was looking at Chennai airport becoming a hub for airline companies in the Southeast Asia region. The original estimate of the terminal was Rs 1,808 crore. The authority is expecting the period for pay back to be in nearly 10 years.
The domestic terminal would have a capacity of 10 million, while for international it is 4 million. The combined area of the new terminals is around 1,33,462 sq metre.
