Navi Mumbai: Airport work crawls ahead, pre-development to begin in March

Navi Mumbai airport, Industrial Development Corporation, pre-development work, airport land, Mumbai, international Airport, land acquisition

After a series of delays in the Navi Mumbai international airport project due to land acquisition challenges, the City & Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) seems to be making some headway.

The selected agency would work on reclamation of marshland, raising the height of land to sea level, demolishing hillocks and flattening land. File pic

The nodal agency has stated that by the first week of March 2015, the technical and financial bidder who will carry out the pre-development work of the airport land will be finalised.

CIDCO would be funding the pre-development work, which includes reclamation of marshland, raising the height of land to sea level, demolishing hillocks and flattening the 1,160 hectares of aeronautical area, out of the 2,268 hectares of airport land.

Officials said that the process is expected to take more than a year to complete, and would cost approximately Rs 1,700 crore. The pre-development work would kick-start once the land acquisition is completed, which the agency is expected to accomplish by mid of January 2015.

K L Dhake, Superintending Engineer and General Manager (Airport), said, "The bid for pre-development process was invited two months back. During selection, the bidder's experience and financial capacity will be taken into consideration. The selection process should be complete by the first week of March 2015."

The Request for Qualification (RFQ) of the proposed international airport would be completed by January 28, while the process of Request for Proposal (RFP) should be completed three months after it, said a CIDCO spokesperson.

The nodal agency recently carried out the third lottery draw for allotment of land to project affected people (PAP) as per the 22.5 per cent scheme.