Puducherry, Jun 3 (IANS): Work for expansion of Puducherry airport's runway is on and the Airport Authority of India (AAI) is preparing a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the same.

Puducherry Civil Aviation minister Lakshminarayanan while speaking to IANS said, "A technical team of the AAI had visited the Union Territory in January 2022 and had assessed the details of the land requirement and a master plan has been prepared as a follow up of this visit."

He said that there would be land acquisition in two phases involving 30 acres of land in Union territory of Puducherry and 395 acres in Tamil Nadu in two phases.

In the first phase, 150.5 acres of land will be acquired, of which 30 acres is in Puducherry while the remaining 120.5 acres is in Tamil Nadu.

During phase two expansion, 273.5 acres of land will be acquired in Tamil Nadu and the state government has already allocated Rs 300 crore for this land.

Sources in the Union Territory government told IANS that of the 30 acres of land required from the Puducherry government, 28.5 acres have been identified.

Of this, 20 acres is with the Puducherry government while the balance 8.5 acres is with private owners and government sources told IANS that there are around 60 buildings in this 8.5-acre landed property.

According to officials, the present runway is 1500x30 m and is capable of handling smaller ATR48/72 aircraft and Q400 type of aircraft.

The land to acquire, according to officials, is a low-lying area and has to be filled for around 60 feet to make it at par with the existing runway.

The total amount required for acquiring the land is around Rs 425 crore as per the present estimate, officials of the Union territory informed IANS and added that the entire amount will be funded by the Union Government.