Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan has written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, seeking environmental clearance for the Rs 10,000-crore second airport project for Mumbai at the earliest.
Chavan, who was in Delhi today to attend the chief ministers’ meeting on security and terror, was expected to separately meet the prime minister who also holds the portfolio of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, said a senior official from the state urban development ministry.
The City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco), the state government’s infrastructure arm, is the nodal agency for the second airport project. It proposes to build the greenfield airport over 2,000 hectares near Panvel in Navi Mumbai area.
Currently, the Mumbai airport can handle around 20 million passengers annually and it is expected to increase up to 40 million once the modernisation is fully implemented. However, even then this capacity is expected to be fully utilised by 2013.
Speaking with Business Standard the official said: “Some part of the airport violates costal regulatory zone (CRZ) guidelines. However, if one applies the guidelines of the proposed Costal Management Zone (CMZ) policy, the greenfield airport can easily get environmental clearance.”
However, finalising the CMZ policy is going to be a long-drawn process, he said, adding “we are suggesting the central government to make an exception under the present CRZ regime and allow us go ahead with the bidding”. Even out of 2,000 hectares required for the airport, 80 per cent are in Cidco’s possession, he pointed out.
