Navi Mumbai Airport: Cidco readies for project take-off

Work expected to begin next month as state govt sets 2019 deadline

Blue signboards stand firm, alongside the busy highway leading to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust. These boards have been the only visible sign of an upcoming airport in the Navi Mumbai region.

For a little over two decades, the airport has remained on paper. The mere proposal has helped local builders sell housing projects and politicians to win elections. Earlier this month, with the GVK group winning the bid for its construction, it is now on way to becoming a reality. For executives and engineers of the City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco), the state agency in charge of the project, the award brings a sense of relief. 

A survey to measure ground elevation has been done and the boundaries demarcated. Actual work on the site awaits the Union environment ministry’s approval. “We are expecting stage-II forest clearance in 15 days,” said Cidco’s joint managing director, Prajakta Lavangare. She denied that affected villagers were opposing the works. Cidco had, she said, given written assurances to them while accepting their demands for relief and rehabilitation.

Cidco expects pre-development work on the site to start next month and the airport to be ready for operations by 2019-end. However, aviation experts believe this is not realistic and expect five years for completion.

Further delays would be costly. The existing Mumbai airport is facing capacity constraints and has been turning down requests for slots from domestic airlines. In the current financial year, the airport is expected to handle 46 million passengers; next year, this could be 50 million. Consultancy CAPA estimates Mumbai airport to be saturated in 2017-18. The date of completion would depend on how quickly the site is prepared. The work is enormous. It involves diversion of a river, shifting of two power transmission lines and making 1,160 hectares of marsh land and mud flats ready for construction of a terminal building and runway. A single hillock covering 350 hectares will be blasted and flattened; a total of 35 million cubic metres of rockfill will be used for raising the land. Daily 70,000 to 100,000 cubic metres of rockfill will be made available for use. The airport site is low-lying, with an elevation of only zero to two metres above the mean sea level. The contractors will have to raise the level to 5.5 metres. Subsequently, it will be raised to eight metres, after the detailed layout of airport and utilities is prepared.

The pre-development work has been divided in three components. It has been awarded to the GVK group, Gayatri Projects and Thakur Infraprojects, and J M Mhatre Infra.

Cidco officials insist work can commence next month and needn’t wait till the affected villages are shifted. In all 3,500 families reside in 10 affected villages and Cidco Managing Director Bhushan Gagrani says shifting would be done by end-June.

Two of the 10 villages (Vaghivli and Upper Owale) are close to the hillock in question.  “We will take adequate precautions and take the help of the Central Institute for Fuel and Mining Research to design blasting operations and for mitigation,” a Cidco official said. Vibrations and seismographic impact from the operations will be mapped.

The Indian Institute of Technology here has designed a channel for diversion of the Ulwe river outside the airport boundaries. The river is seasonal in nature but experts say the solution should be foolproof.

“The Ulwe is connected to a tidal estuary. This means the tide determines the discharge capacity and water levels. The river diversion should be designed to cater to the peak, when a tidal surge and heavy monsoon rains coincide. As future skies get busier with air traffic, it would be unacceptable to have dozens of aircraft circling in the air in case of the airport runway being submerged by Ulwe floodwaters. So, the solution should be future-proof. Climate change should be taken into account, which means factors such as sea level rise and intensified monsoon cycles,” said Joeri Aulman, airport planner with Dutch consultancy firm NACO.

The other important part of the site development work is shifting of two transmission lines outside the airport area. About 15 km of the state transmission corporation’s overhead line and 9.5 km of a Tata Power line pass through the site. These are to now be carried through underground ducts outside the airport area and on four bridges of one-two km in length on mangroves and the creek.

Shifting villagers a challenge

Getting 3,500 families from 10 villages to part with their land for the airport has been a daunting task for Cidco. Villagers who parted with land in previous acquisitions have had bad experiences with the agency’s functioning. Breaking the ice was crucial, as 671 hectares of the 2,268 ha required for the project is being acquired from village residents.

Cidco has reached out to the locals in many ways. In 2013, former joint managing director V Radha had attended a haldi kumkum event (a social gathering among Maharashtrian women) to strike a rapport. Other initiatives include helping local fisherwomen to sell their catch to housing colonies in the adjoining townships and training programmes for local youth. By 2014, resistance had abated and villagers began giving consent.

“For the purpose of acquisition, Cidco relied on Google Images and National Remote Sensing Centre data, to give us accurate information on the number of houses,” said an official.

However, some houses were apparently not captured by the data, being hidden under tree cover. Villagers claim such houses were excluded from the rehabilitation package and are demanding their inclusion. “We will not allow work on the site until we get assurances for our demands,” says Rupesh Mohite, a resident of Targhar village. This includes giving land lots to those who were earlier considered ineligible. Other demands include transit accommodation close to their villages and increasing the allowance Cidco will pay for constructing new homes on allotted lots. Last month, Cidco relaxed some of its conditions for rehabilitation, owing to the villager pressure.

Some complaints remain. “Cidco should begin work on amenities such as water and electricity connections before villages take possession of the (allotted) plots. Two villages are close to the hillock and residents will shift only if proper infrastructure arrangements are made for them on the allocated plots,” said Natha Patil, president of the Sangharsh Samiti representing those affected.