Chandigarh, July 15 – A dividend of Rs 3.56 crore has been disbursed by Chandigarh International Airport Limited (CHIAL) to the Haryana Government for the year 2020-2021.

Chandigarh International Airport Ltd, CEO, Sh. Ajay Kumar along with Sh. Rakesh Dembla Chief Financial Officer and Smt. Avneet Kaur Company Secretary presented the cheque of amount Rs 3.20 Crore to Haryana Chief Minister, Sh. Manohar Lal after deducting TDS from this dividend amount of Rs.3.56 crore here today. Chief Administrator, Haryana Urban Development Authority, Sh. Ajit Balaji Joshi was also present on this occasion.

While stating this here today, an official spokesperson said Haryana Government has 24.5% stake in Joint venture formed by Airports Authority of India (AAI) and  Government of Haryana & Punjab. He informed that the dividend has been paid for the year 2020-2021.

Significantly, Aviation sector has been hit badly by the pandemic, domestic & international flights have been banned. Even after resumption of domestic flights, restrictions were there on number of passengers, he added.

Chandigarh International Airport sailed through these tough times, earned profit and paid dividend to its stakeholders. The Airport has handled 13.70 lakh domestic passenger movement in the year 2020-21 and 23.23 lakh domestic passenger in the year 2019-20.

The spokesperson said that CHIAL has recently completed installation of In-line Baggage System. With this system, the passengers will need not to stand in long  queues at X-ray machine for baggage screening, he added.

He said that in a move to upgrade infrastructure, it has added three number of Passenger Boarding Bridges taking total tally to five. Chandigarh Airport recently completed construction of 14 numbers of aircraft parking bays and now has 23 numbers of aircraft parking stands at its disposal.

He said that New Integrated Cargo complex with a capacity to handle 2500MT including perishable cargo is being developed at the airport to boost Cargo from the region. He said that the Cargo complex is ready and expected to be operational by end of the month. Southern Taxi Track has been constructed to enhance runway capacity and will be put into operations by mid of August.

He said that flights which were suspended due to Covid i.e  Chandigarh-Patna are going to be resumed and new destinations like Guwahati & Bhubaneshwar are going to be connected shortly.