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, Ajay Kumar along with Rakesh Dembla, chief financial officer and Avneet Kaur, company secretary presented the cheque of amount Rs 3.20 crore to Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar after deducting TDS from this dividend amount of Rs 3.56 crore here on Thursday.
An official spokesperson said the Haryana Government has 24.5 percent stake in a joint venture formed by Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Governments of Haryana and Punjab. He informed that the dividend has been paid for the year 2020-2021.
Significantly, the aviation sector has been hit badly by the COVID-19 pandemic as domestic and international flights were banned. Even after resumption of domestic flights, restrictions were there on the 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 movements in the year 2020-21 and 23.23 lakh domestic passengers in the year 2019-20, the spokesman said.
He further said that CHIAL has recently completed installation of an in-line baggage system. With this system, the passengers will need not stand in long queues at X-ray machines for baggage screening, he said.
Chandigarh Airport recently completed construction of 14 numbers of aircraft parking bays and now has 23 numbers of aircraft parking stands at its disposal. A New Integrated Cargo complex with a capacity to handle 2500 MT including perishable cargo is being developed at the airport to boost Cargo from the region, the spokesman informed.
He said that the Cargo complex is expected to be operational by the 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 added.
The spokesman said that flights which were suspended due to Covid i.e Chandigarh-Patna are going to be resumed and new destinations like Guwahati and Bhubaneswar are going to be connected shortly.