Mumbai:
After a meeting, the Environment Minister and the Civil Aviation Minister seem close to a compromise on the plans for a new airport at Navi Mumbai, say sources.
The Navi Mumbai airport is scheduled to begin operations in 2013 at Panvel, about 20 kilometres away from the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. It's expected to handle an additional 60 million passengers every year.
However, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had expressed concern over the proposed blueprint's impact on 400 acres of forests and mangroves which protect the Mumbai coastline. Two rivers would also need to be diverted.
Patel, however, pointed out to Ramesh at their meeting that of the 17 sites that were considered for a new airport for Mumbai, only Navi Mumbai can accommodate two runways - a basic feature standardized for all new international airports by the Union Cabinet in 2004.
An alternative site at Kalyan, proposed by some Maharashtra ministers to Jairam Ramesh, was rejected by the National Security Advisor because it's close a facility operated by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.
Another option - Rewas Mandwa, about 100 kilometers from Mumbai, is unsuitable because of poor connectivity to the city.
Sources say Ramesh has asked the Aviation Ministry and the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation to "ruthlessly rework" their design to minimize the impact on the environment - the major concern being that the current plans could cause flooding in Navi Mumbai. A solution might lie in shifting the runways' location slightly so that the mangroves face as little encroachment as possible.
Why Navi Mumbai:- According to government, the Mumbai international airport will exhaust its capacity of 40 million passengers per year by 2013
- Navi Mumbai airport will generate capacity of 60 million passengers per year
- CIDCO (the implementing agency) has already acquired over 80 percent of the land for the airport, so land acquisition problems will be minimal
- The connectivity to Mumbai is better than other sites, says the government
What goes against it:- 400 acres of mangroves will have to go
- Ulwe and Gadhi rivers will have to be diverted
- At least 90 metre of the hills in the area will have to be felled. Environmentalists fear this will lead to major flooding in Navi Mumbai