Newstrack

MIAL eyeing 26 acres of private land near airport

Letter with additional suburban collector, land to be used to expand cargo complex

Lekha Agarwal

Exploring all avenues for development, the land-locked Mumbai airport finds itself in a critical dilemma. After the civil aviation ministry put in a request to the Empowered Group of Ministers to release 200 acres of salt-pan land to rehabilitate encroaching slums, MIAL, the consortium headed by GVK, is now eyeing 26 acres of private land skirting the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) for aviation related development.

Faced with an acute land crunch at the country's busiest airport, MIAL is finding 1,964 acres of real estate - 276 acres of which is encroached upon by tightly packed slum colonies - cramping its expansion plans.

Consider this: Delhi airport boasts a 5,160-acre sprawl, while the new greenfield airports coming up at Bangalore and Hyderabad have 4,050 acres and 5,500 acres respectively. And so MIAL is not sitting tight.

In a letter to the additional suburban collector, MIAL managing director G V Sanjay Reddy said, "It is necessary to acquire land of village Sahar for extension and development of CSIA, Mumbai. It has therefore requested to acquire the said land and handover to Mumbai International Airport at an early date." Details regarding property cards were annexed in triplicate.

Later, MIAL requested for additional land in Sahar Church Pakhadi, Sahar Talav Pakhadi and in Kolekalyan (see box). "Most of these patches are "literally wedged between two airport areas, making the airport land incontiguous," a spokesperson said. In all, MIAL has proposed to acquire 1,05,571 sq m of land, which is about 26 acres. It is near the existing air cargo complex and will be used for the expansion of the same, an MIAL spokesperson confirmed.

"There is a dual purpose for the acquisition of gaothan land. While the cargo complex will ultimately be shifted to Santacruz over the next 6-7 years, there is a need to expand the cargo facilities in the interim," the spokesperson said, explaining that ultimately, the area could be used for parking bays, or extension of the passenger terminal.

However, the acquisition of private property is a long-drawn process and would take at least 18 months-that too if there is no opposition from existing landowners.

Significantly, recently the civil aviation minister Praful Patel noted that bids for the Navi Mumbai Airport would be invited by year-end, given the urgent need to enhance capacity for Mumbai, since CSIA would be saturated by 2012-13.