Grounded

The Mumbai airport already handles 26 million passengers,while its annual capacity is 20 million. At the current rate,the Mumbai airport would reach its peak saturation level of 40 million flyers by 2015. The only succour in sight is if 35 kms away,the second airport project takes off. The Navi Mumbai airport itself is estimated to reach its saturation handling capacity of 60 million by 2027,by when a third airport for the city would have to be planned to meet the projected increase in air traffic which is expected to go up to 80 million passengers.

The slugfest between Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and Minister of State for Environment and Forest Jairam Ramesh is only the latest in a series of buck-passing between agencies and departments. The Navi Mumbai airport was cleared by the Union Cabinet way back in 2005. Since then,the only movement it has seen has been in terms of the paperwork.

“These are procedural delays. We have now submitted the final Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report to the Centre which addresses all concerns raised by the Environment Ministry,” said Tanaji Satre,the officiating managing director for City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO),the nodal state government agency for the airport project. He added that fate of the project would now be decided by the Central environmental expert appraisal committee on July 21.

Ramesh had found CIDCO’s draft EIA report unsatisfactory as far as the adverse impact on coastal environment was concerned. He had asked the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) to send its recommendations along with CIDCO’s final EIA report on June 22. Both were sent only last week.

The bone of contention is the ecological impact on the site as a fourth of the 1,140 hectares of the land falls under the highly protected Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ). Construction work on the site demands uprooting of 162 hectares of mangroves and also the draining of Gadhi river and diversion of Ulwe river. CIDCO has proposed that it will try to mitigate the ecological impact by planting mangroves on 350 to 400 hectares of land in nearby Dahanu and Palghar.

State Environment Secretary Valsa Nair Singh,who also chairs MCZMA,said that the authority is convinced that CIDCO’s final report addresses all environmental concerns and that measures proposed by it will counter-balance much of the adverse impact. Explaining the reason for the prolonged delay in the project,she said,“Construction of a greenfield airport was not a permissible activity under CRZ norms. It was only in May 2009 that the Centre amended the CRZ rules allowing the airport to come up at the Navi Mumbai site.”

Former CIDCO MD G S Gill said that the Navi Mumbai airport was first conceptualised in 1997,and since then efforts to find an alternative site have failed due to issues of land acquisition or shifting of locals in other sites. Gill,who handled the project until earlier this year,said that the project has suffered due to too many conflicting views and debates. “It has to take off,no doubt,if the existing airport has to get decongested. There is a need to give sufficient priority to critical infrastructural projects,” he added.

With inputs from Dhaval Kulkarni