Project to be awarded in 12 months; first phase will be complete by 2015
The environment ministry today cleared the Navi Mumbai international airport project after a three-year delay. The ministry had resolutely opposed the project on environmental grounds, despite it receiving in-principle Cabinet approval in July 2007.
Mumbai will become the first city in the country to have two operational airports. Together, they will have a capacity to handle 50 million passengers a year by 2015. Phase one of the new airport will handle 10 million passengers, a figure that will expand to 40 million by 2030 at an investment of Rs 9,970 crore.
| CHECK-IN COUNTER | ||
| Airports | Capacity | Current |
| Delhi | 62 | 28.0 |
| Bangalore | 12 | 9.3 |
| Hyderabad | 12 | 6.4 |
| Mumbai | 40 | 25.8 |
| Navi Mumbai* | 40 | — |
* By 2030
The Navi Mumbai airport is vital, as Mumbai’s existing 1,840-acre Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport already handles 25.8 million passengers a year and will reach its 40-million capacity in four years with no space to expand. This has already compelled airlines like GoAir and Air India to shift base to Delhi. As the Navi Mumbai airport will take around five years to complete, Mumbai airport is likely to face severe congestion in the interim.
“The airport project will be awarded in 10-12 months and the first phase will be complete by 2014-15. We will also make the airport green by meeting 20 per cent of the airport’s energy needs through non-conventional sources of energy,” said Maharasthra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.
However, based on the assumption of a 15 per cent annual growth in passenger traffic, the Navi Mumbai airport is expected to be bursting at the seams within a year of opening. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel today said the new airport’s plan may be reworked to raise the initial capacity to 20 million. “We will have to look into combining the first two phases of the airport development into one,” said Patel.
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The Navi Mumbai airport is being developed as a public-private partnership, with the private sector partner holding 74 per cent equity, while Airports Authority of India and the state government’s City & Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) holding 13 per cent each. Hyderabad-based GVK Group, which is the private operator for Chhatrapati Shivaji airport, will have first right of refusal for the new airport.
The project has gone through several ups and downs, with many environmental concerns raised by NGOs as well as the environment ministry.
Under the compromise formula, Cidco will plant and protect mangroves amounting to 615 hectares in the form of biodiversity parks well before the airport is operational.
Currently, the site has only 161 hectares of mangroves. The civil aviation ministry has also agreed to reduce the distance between the two runways, ensuring that the course of the Gadhi river does not change. Cidco will also have to put to put in place a contingency plan to avoid the flooding of low-lying areas in the airport’s precincts and a comprehensive master plan for surface drainage and flood protection, keeping in view the recoursing of the Ulwe river.
“I have also asked the state government to set up a high-level advisory and monitoring committee to oversee implementation of the environmental conditionalities at various stages,” said Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.
Despite the prospect of a new airport, Mumbai appears to have lost for good its pre-eminent position in terms of air passenger traffic. Even if the construction plan of the Navi Mumbai airport is expanded to a capacity of 20 million in the initial phase, the two airports’ combined figure is less than that of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, which has a capacity to handle 62 million, against a current load of 28 million.
Moreover, against the 4,000-acre combined area of both Mumbai airports, Delhi airport has over 5,000 acres available and can expand its capacity to 100 million passengers a year. Said a source at private operator Delhi International Airport Ltd: “We do not see any threat from the new airport at Mumbai. Delhi’s T-3 has been built as an integrated airport, with both domestic and international services in one place as a hub, unlike Mumbai where they will be separate." Experts say Mumbai’s new airport will function as a feeder, handling only international flights.
According to the earlier plan, the first phase of the Navi Mumbai airport’s planned capacity of 10 million passengers a year was supposed to have been completed by 2012 at a cost Rs 4,200 crore. The second phase was to be completed by 2017 and add 10 million at a cost of Rs 1,896 crore.
The third and fourth phases were to add 10 million each, increasing the total capacity to 40 million. The third phase was planned to be completed by 2022 at Rs 1,600 crore and the fourth phase by 2028 at a cost of Rs 2,272 crore.