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Notwithstanding the complexities associated with the proposed airport in Navi Mumbai, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan says that Maharashtra’s goal is to establish an airport in every district.
He is particularly keen that the State develops airports with facilities for night landing.
“It is the State’s endeavour to have the best civil aviation infrastructure than anywhere else in the country. We want to have all-weather airports in all districts; we look forward to building a robust civil aviation infrastructure,” Chavan said, without articulating a time-frame for this vision.
The State has already identified two locations in Pune for what will be a single runway airport, with the potential to add additional runway in the future, he said.
Maharashtra has 35 districts in all.
“We wish to cover all small airports with commercial services…We have some offers for the same,” he said without providing more details.
According to >ourairports.com , Maharashtra has 29 airports of which only eight (Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Aurangabad, Nashik, Nanded, Latur and Kolhapur) are used for commercial airline services.
The State also intends to set up a helipad in every tehsil headquarters so that relief activities can be quickly mobilised in case of a disaster.
On the proposed Navi Mumbai airport which has been stuck at the last leg of the land acquisition process, Chavan said that the State is confident of a positive solution.
The project-affected people on 400 hectares of land are all set to get additional 10 per cent developed land, probably one of the highest such compensations, over and above the 12.5 per cent developed land offered against land acquisitions
“Land acquisition in a complex process and we are at it. We believe that we have made a handsome offer to the project-affected people,” he said.
The project cost of the Navi Mumbai airport, which was envisaged at Rs 4,766 crore in 1998 to handle 40 million passengers annually, has risen substantially to Rs 14,573 crore to manage 60 million passengers a year.
> Adith.charlie@thehindu.co.in
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