The old terminal building at Chandigarh Airport, which has remained closed for passenger flights since the commissioning of the new terminal in 2015, is now being developed into an airport security training institute.
This information was shared by the UT transport department in its action-taken report presented during the UT Administrator’s Advisory Council meeting held on Thursday.
The department also informed the council that an airport security lab is planned at the site as part of the proposed training infrastructure. Officials said the old terminal has largely remained unused for commercial passenger services since the inauguration of the new integrated terminal nearly a decade ago.
Instead of reopening it for passenger operations, the government has decided to re-purpose the facility for training and institutional purposes. The ministry of civil aviation had earlier clarified that there was no proposal to restore passenger services at the old terminal.
In response to a question raised by Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari during a previous Lok Sabha session, the minister of state for civil aviation stated that the building has already been repurposed for several operational and administrative functions.
Tewari had asked whether the government had any plans to make the old terminal operational again and, if not, the reasons for allowing public infrastructure—renovated at significant cost—to remain underutilised. He had also sought details of the expenditure incurred on reconstruction, renovation, and refurbishment of the terminal between 2010 and 2014.
Responding to the query, the minister informed parliament that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) had spent ₹43.86 crore on rebuilding and refurbishing the old terminal during that period. The MP had also pointed out that the extensively upgraded facility, which included immigration counters and customs infrastructure, had remained virtually idle since the inauguration of the new terminal in September 2015.
However, the ministry clarified that the building has since been utilised for multiple purposes, including housing communication, navigation and surveillance systems, as well as offices related to electrical, civil, finance, human resources and other administrative operations of the AAI.
Providing details of the expenditure incurred on maintenance of the structure, the minister stated that the average monthly cost of upkeep by AAI stood at ₹12.92 lakh in 2015–16, ₹12.42 lakh in 2016–17, ₹11.92 lakh in 2017–18, ₹12.58 lakh in 2018–19, and ₹10.42 lakh in 2019–20. The maintenance expenditure declined to ₹4.92 lakh in 2020–21, ₹5.08 lakh in 2021–22, ₹4.83 lakh in 2022–23, and ₹7 lakh in 2023–24.
