For new airport at Navi Mumbai, final go-ahead by October

Civil aviation minister Praful Patel today emphatically declared that all clearances for the Navi Mumbai Airport project would come through by early next month.

“If everything goes well, we should get a final go-ahead for the Navi Mumbai airport project by October, and the bidding for the project should begin by end-December 2010,” patel revealed to a select group of journalists today.

Praful Patel also disclosed that his ministry has directed CIDCO and other agencies involved to keep everything ready, so that the bidding process can start in time. To ensure that this happens, Patel has already filled in posts such as Financial, Technical and Legal Consultants-posts that are critical for the bidding to go on steam. There was a difference of perspective between Patel and Jairam Ramesh on the environmental feasibility of such a mega airport project that is expected to create around 20,000 jobs across skills and categories.

Patel’s will has finally prevailed. Since Patel is already in a conciliatory state, the civil aviation minister is willing to consider Jairam’s objections regarding the non-aeronautical revenue generation area and its location around the proposed airport.
Pointing out the criticality of this airport for flights in and out of Mumbai, Patel said his ministry would soon issue an order for redirecting all Turboprop operations under ‘General Aviation’ from the existing international airport immediately. According to him, this should pull away some load from the overcrowded airport.