Work on runway across Adyar likely to start in June

V Ayyappan | TNN
May 15, 2009

Chennai: Work on the first-of-its-kind runway bridge across the Adyar river is likely to start in early June with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) awarding the contract to Chennai-based Consolidated Construction Consortium Limited (CCCL).
The bridge, costing Rs 186 crore, will be constructed to extend the 2,035-metre secondary runway by 1,400 metre across the river as part of the airport expansion work. It will be approximately 420 metres long and 200 metres wide and will stand on pillars. Though the AAI initially wanted to build a box culvert like structure, the plan was changed.
“Now, the company will be building a regular bridge that will be capable of carrying the load of aircraft. Experts from the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi will provide the technical knowhow to construct the bridge that will have space for a runway and a parallel taxiway,” said an AAI official. When completed, the airport will become the only one in the country to have a runway for take-offs and landings across a river. Mumbai airport has an end of its runway across the Mithi river, but this stretch is used only for taxiing.
CCCL chief finance officer T R Seetharaman said: “We will sign an agreement with AAI in a couple of days. Works will start soon after that.” The company has stated that works will be completed in a year. “The bridge will be made of pre-stressed concrete. We have expertise in making similar bridges, though they were not for aircraft movement,” he added.
Though tender was opened for the work in December 2008, it took nearly four months to be awarded. The award of contract got delayed because AAI wanted to reduce the cost of construction and advance the deadline for completion of the project. The original cost was scaled down from Rs 197 crore to Rs 186 crore following the decrease in cost of construction material, said Seetharaman.
Meanwhile, KGL Construction, which bagged the tender to extend the runway, is going ahead with the works in full swing to meet the deadline of 2010. The surface height of the runway has been raised to prevent flooding during monsoons. AAI is getting technical assistance from IITMadras for the runway portion of the work because the river is flood-prone.
“The extended secondary run way will help us operate one departure for every arrival, which will be useful to manage peak-hour traffic. The secondary runway intersects the primary runway only at the GST Road end of the airport. This leaves the entire runway free for operation,” said airport director K Natarajan.