GVK-led Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) today said it has received the Letter of Award (LOA) from CIDCO, which gives it the mandate for developing the much-delayed Navi Mumbai international airport.
The LoA came a day after the Maharashtra government approved the selection of MIAL for developing the airport on public private partnership (PPP) basis.
In February this year, MIAL had won the bids for the greenfield airport that will be built on 1,160 hectares on PPP mode with the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), the nodal agency for the project.
MIAL will hold a 74 per cent stake while the Cidco holds the rest.
"We are excited that GVK has been awarded this exciting project. The GVK is committed to develop its airport business globally and the award of the Navi Mumbai project to us is another major step in this direction," said GVK founder Chairman and MIAL Executive Chairman, G V K Reddy.
The new airport was proposed in 1997 and received the government's approval in 2007. However, the project got delayed due to the land acquisition issues and over securing necessary government permissions, including the environmental clearance.
The MIAL had beaten the rival GMR Infrastructure to win the bid to develop the Rs 16,000-crore airport.
While GMR had offered 10.44 percentage of revenue share, GVK offered 12.60 percentage of revenue share.
The project management implementation committee (PMIC), headed by state Chief Secretary, then selected MIAL as the highest bidder. Subsequently, the state Cabinet endorsed the PMICs selection.
While the BJP-led state government has claimed that the project will be executed by 2019, the Sydney-based aviation think-tank--the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA)--in a recent report said the airport is unlikely to become functional before March 2024.
"With significant earthworks to be performed at the site before construction can commence, it is highly unlikely that the second airport (Navi Mumbai) will commence operations until FY (Financial Year) 2023 at the earliest..," CAPA Global Strategy Report for July-August, 2017, had said.
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