Chavan meets Jairam,yet to get green signal for Navi Mumbai airport

Even as Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan travelled to Delhi on Tuesday to lobby for the clearance of the Navi Mumbai airport project,an unrelenting Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said there were serious ecological problems with the project that could not be overlooked.

Chavan had a detailed meeting with Ramesh here,mainly on the issue of Navi Mumbai airport,during which he tried to convince the Environment Minister of the necessity of going ahead with the project. Chavan is learnt to have told him that relocating the project to a new site was not feasible since that would involve fresh land acquisition and would take a very long time. Moreover,there was hardly any land available in the area. On the other hand,about 80 per cent of land for the current project had already been acquired by the state government.

Ramesh refused to give any assurance,saying a decision on the project would depend on the advice of the expert group that has been asked to examine the environmental impact assessment report later this month.

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Ramesh told reporters later that the environmental impact assessment report would be submitted to the ministry by Wednesday evening while the expert group will meet on July 21 and 22 to discuss the issue.

“The Environment Ministry is not against any infrastructure project. But there are serious ecological issues involved in this project. There is threat to mangrove cultivation in the area. Two rivers would probably need to be diverted. All these have to be taken into account. Any decision would have to balance our developmental needs with concerns over environment,” Ramesh told reporters.