Tenders for Navi Mumbai airport project likely in next 6 months: Praful Patel

Tenders for the proposed Navi Mumbai airport are likely to be floated in the next six month and the project is "very much on track", civil aviation minister Praful Patel said today.

"The airport project is very much on track. The tendering process will be initiated over the next six months and I hope it to be completed by the end of this year," Patel told reporters at a function here.

"The airport is already delayed by three years. We expect the first phase to be operational by 2013," he said. The City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) of Maharashtra, the project implementation agency, has already acquired 75 per cent of the land for the airport, Patel said, adding, "we are awaiting the final clearance from the ministry of environment and forest."

The minister said there were certain ecological issues relating to the airport project but "these are not coming in the way of building the new airport."

The new Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) notification, issued by the government recently, allows greenfield projects to come up in these zones. The minister said he was likely to hold a meeting on the issue with Maharashtra government next week.

On the issue of private operators’ proposal to the civil aviation ministry seeking its approval to hike development fees at some major airports, he said the issue now rests with the airport regulator, Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA)."

AERA is fully functional now and such issues are to be decided by the regulator. The Ministry has no role to play in it," Patel said.

Asked whether six AAI-operated airports, which are undergoing modernisation, intend to levy a development fee, he said the Ministry had cleared the proposal and it was now for the AERA to fix the charges.

Patel said that 12 airports, which had the capacity to handle over 1.5 million passengers annually, had been identified and would be regulated by AERA.

Noting that Pune also requires a second airport to provide better connectivity, he urged the private sector to take advantage of the government’s new greenfield projects policy which encourages private investment in the development of airport infrastructure in the country.

Earlier, Patel inaugurated a three-day executive programme on Airports and Airlines systems, launched jointly by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Office of Professional Education and Lavasa Corporation. Lavasa is the first hill city being developed by the Hindustan Constructions Company (HCC) near Pune.