L&T close to bag Rs 5k-cr city airport revamp deal

MUMBAI: Engineering and Construction major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has bagged the master contract for the redevelopment of the Mumbai airport, the largest airport hub in the country, sources close to the development said.
The contract is for the reconstruction of the domestic and international airport building as well as the air-side redevelopment of the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA). This includes the runway and a new integrated cargo complex among others. The total value of the deal is estimated to be worth over Rs 5,000 crore and a formal agreement is expected to be signed later this week.

The project to redevelop the airport section by section, even as it continues operations, is slated to be among the most complex infrastructure projects undertaken in the world.

L&T is expected to carry out most of the work on its own, except for some technical contracts like baggage handling, electrical and certain mechanical work that maybe sub-contracted to domain experts.

Mumbai International Airport (MIAL), the company which operates the airport has yet to finalise plans for the other major contract for the city-side redevelopment, which will include commercial development like hotels, convention centres and a recreation area planned around the Sahar airport.

Taking forward the process of reshaping the Mumbai airport, MIAL last week awarded another key contract, for the rehabilitation of slums, to HDIL. CSIA is a severely land constrained airport with about 276 acres of airport land under slums. MIAL has been unable to reclaim even an inch of the encroached land in the 18 months since it took control of the project from the Airport Authority of India. At present, CSIA caters to nearly 18 million passengers and handles around 400,000 tonnes of cargo annually.

The master plan, yet to be approved by the government, has been designed to expand and upgrade the infrastructure to cater to traffic of 40 million passengers per year and one million metric tonnes of cargo per year by 2010. International and domestic terminals will be merged into one terminal building at the current international building and the current domestic terminal will be converted to dedicated cargo terminal. The new integrated cargo complex is being planned, which will be equipped to cater to all kind of goods including perishables and agri-produce .