MUMBAI: The GVK-ACSA consortium entrusted with the responsibility of modernising Mumbai’s domestic and international airports has requested the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to relocate about 10,000 encroachments on the Airport Authority of India (AAI) land to transit camps by year-end.
Eighty thousand families have so far been identified as encroachers.
At a meeting held recently with the MMRDA, the project implementation authority for the modernisation plan, the consortium handed over the initial airport development scheme. The scheme has suggested changes to the resettlement plans submitted by the MMRDA to the Civil Aviation Ministry.
T Chandrashekhar, MMRDA Commissioner, said: “The scheme proposes to convert the domestic airport into a dedicated cargo complex, while the international airport will be used for passenger traffic. A new runway, though, is the priority.” The MMRDA will be responsible for resettling the project-affected people at Dahisar and Kurla. Architect Mukesh Mehta - the brain behind the Dharavi redevelopment proposal - has been appointed to conduct the socio-economic survey to determine those eligible for rehabilitation.
Interestingly, encroachers will be resettled as per the state government’s new cut-off date of January 1, 2000, even though the Bombay High Court had ordered against changing the existing January 1, 1995.
The decision increases the number of encroachers eligible for free housing in the constituencies of three Congress legislators - Nasim Khan, Nawab Mallik and Kripashankar Singh.
The GVK consortium and MMRDA have not signed a formal agreement as Reliance has approached the Supreme Court claiming the Centre had not followed due process in awarding contracts for the Delhi and Mumbai airports.
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