Second international airport in Mumbai set to take off

MUMBAI: Mumbai's second international airport is set to "take-off" with the Union Cabinet likely to approve the long-awaited project next month.

"We are confident of a positive response from the Cabinet next month. We expect to start work by May as our feasibility report has been well accepted by civil aviation authorities, Deepak Kapoor, Joint Managing Director of CIDCO, under whose aegis the project is coming up, said here.

"The project is expected to be complete by 2013," he said, adding "Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh are taking a personal interest...meetings have just been held with CIDCO," Kapoor told PTI.

"The global tenders are in place, the IL&FS PDR has been approved and everything is ready...we are just waiting to begin," a confident Kapoor said.

The Rs 9000-crore, 4F-ICAO code friendly, green-field airport, fourth such in the country, will make Mumbai the only city in India to have two international airports, putting it on an elite global aviation map.

With the civil aviation sector growing at a staggering 26 per cent, the need for a second international airport is being urgently felt in already overcrowded Mumbai.

"Passenger traffic is expected to touch 90 million by 2030 and this second airport will be needed to meet an extra 50 million that the city's two airports will not be able to handle. At best the present two will be able to handle only 40 million by then," he pointed out.

"Global financial services provider IL&FS has given the proposed airport an IRR rating of a healthy 17 per cent. Even with the sensitivity analysis taking into account unexpected cost escalations IRR has been pegged at 14 per cent which too is healthy," Kapoor said.

"We are confident also, because unlike in other airport projects with a magnitude and scale of this kind which get bogged down in litigations, CIDCO owns 51 per cent of the land needed and 21 per cent has been transferred from government, making us owners of 76 per cent of the land resources needed.

"Another 23 per cent which could have caused trouble has been taken care of by resettlement of 15000 families in four alternative sites provided by CIDCO (a Maharashtra government agency)," Kapoor said.

The people are happy with the land allotted, he said adding, CIDCO now has no fears of bottlenecks in the form of a possible litigation.

Like its predecessors, Bangalore and Hyderabad, this airport too will be built on a 74-13-13 ratio -- 74 per cent private equity, 13 per cent Airport Authority of India and 13 per cent CIDCO. "It has worked there, it will work here too."

The entire airport and ancillary services complex being developed by CIDCO is expected to come up eight kilometres from Panvel on a total of 2053 hectares at village Kopar in the ourskirts of the financial capital.

Of the total land, 1140 hectares have reserved for the core airport area, 470 for commercial activities and 443 hectares for fringe benifits. CIDCO has planned a host of ancilliary services around the airport to ensure connectivity and will make it reachable from downtown South Mumbai in 40 minutes.

"Mainly because CIDCO has planned its connectivity, the new airport is likely to be reachable from any part of Mumbai in 40 minutes" he said.

"CIDCO has plans to connect the new airport by hover craft to nearby areas.... travel time to South Mumbai will be 30 minutes".

"CIDCO will take up a rail link from Mankhurd to the airport beyond what MMRDA (another government development agency) has planned connecting other areas of the city," the top CIDCO official said.

Also, with the Maharashtra Transharbour Link Road expected to come up from Sewri to Nava Sheva, a 15-km stretch will be built to connect the line to the new airport, he said.

The new aviation hub's unique selling points will be "a state-of-art passenger handling services between the two runways to enable viewers watch landings and take-offs from both sides through glass panels," Kapoor said.

"Also, if need be and it comes to the crunch a third runway can be built. We have the land."