05 July,2014 06:54 AM IST | | Neha LM Tripathi
The Rs 5,200-crore terminal, which started operations as recently as February 12, is already showing signs of wear and tear, with tiles coming undone at the arrival and departure sections
T 2
The swanky Terminal 2 - better known as T2 - was inaugurated by then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on January 10 and flight operations started a month later.
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Quick fix: Repair work to replace the damaged tiles is underway at different parts of the international airport.
Less than 5 months later, T2 isn't all that swanky any more. The Rs 5,200-crore terminal is already showing signs of wear. Tiles have been dislodged from the floor, exposing unseemly blotches underneath. With domestic operations slated to take off at T2 soon, the terminal's sheen is likely to wear off even faster, as footfall increases.
Operations started at T2 as recently as February 12, with Air India's Singapore-Mumbai flight via Chennai the first to fly out of the brand new terminal. File Pic
Airport officials claim that the tiles broke because of bad plastering.
"It seems everything was done in haste, and the poor quality of the plastering has led to a major embarrassment for all of us. The tiles have given away, and patch-up work is in progress."
Eyesore: Tiles have been dislodged from the floor, exposing unseemly blotches of plaster underneath.
Repair work can be seen underway at several patches in the arrivals and departures sections of the international airport (T2). The international airport, one of the busiest in the world, has an annual passenger handling capacity of 32.2 million.
Operations started at T2 as recently as February 12, with Air India's Singapore-Mumbai flight via Chennai the first to fly out of the brand new terminal. It is fitted with 1.85 million square feet of granite - enough to cover 27 football fields. The departure hall boasts of a 50-foot-tall glass cable-stayed wall, the longest in the world.
Nearly 30,000 square metres of skylight glass helps the building to achieve daylight autonomy for majority of the year. Four kilometres of LED lighting has been used to illuminate the multi-level car park (MLCP) that can accommodate 5,000 cars, making it the largest in the country.
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But, these grandiose exteriors seem to hide slapdash work that has been completed in haste.
A noted architect explained, requesting anonymity: "Public places should be designed aesthetically, keeping function in mind, and the fact that there will be wear and tear." Another architect noted, "It is routine for an airport to have high footfall. It is possible that the tiles laid were done so improperly, in order to meet deadlines, and so they gave way."
