After many years of delay and regulatory hurdles, the Navi Mumbai airport project is finally off the ground, with the Request for Qualification (RFQ) floated for airport developers on Wednesday. The City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO), the lead project developer, has taken every conceivable regulatory clearance for the airport project, which will cost about ₹5,500 crore in the first phase. Sanjay Bhatia, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of CIDCO, tells Business Line that if all the processes fall in place by December 2017, Mumbai metropolitan region could well get a new airport. Edited excerpts:

Is CIDCO finally ready to launch the Navi Mumbai airport project?

All the necessary clearances, including environment and those from the Civil Aviation Ministry, are in place. The RFQ will set the standards for the developer, after which a Request for Proposal would be called for. By 2017, CIDCO wants the airport to handle 10 million passengers, which will increase to 25 and 40 million passengers in the subsequent years.

By 2032, it should be able to handle 60 million passengers. Out of the 2,200 hectares required for the airport, 1,570 hectares is in CIDCO’s possession. For the rest , CIDCO is negotiating with the villagers. Residents from two villages are reluctant to accept our compensation package.

Will the villagers accept your package, given the fact that land rates in Navi Mumbai attract premium rates ?

Over the last eight months, we have had long negotiations with the villagers, and have spoken to them about being deprived of their land and some common village area. In lieu of the land surrendered by the villagers for the project, they will get 22 per cent developed land near the airport with two floor space index (FSI). In other words, if a villager gives one hectare of land, which is equal to 10,000 square metres, he gets 2,200 square metres developed land near the airport. (A higher FSI means a taller structure can be built.) In the normal course, one hectare of villagers’ land which falls in the Costal Regulation Zone (CRZ) would have fetched them Rs 16 lakh, given the stringent rules.

But the developed land with all the infrastructure in place, is today valued at Rs 16 crore. The 2,000 project affected families would be resettled in Pushpak Nagar in Navi Mumbai, where civic amenities and infrastructure including a monorail connectivity would be provided by CIDCO.

Will CIDCO provide job for those who lose their land?

Along with the developed land, we are also providing vocational employability programme for 8,000 village youths, between the age of 18 and 35. Their aptitude test has been conducted to assess the kind of job they are best suited for. Education institutes and job agencies have also tied up for providing for skills and employment for the youths.

A range of employment opportunities, from fire brigade services to fashion designing, are being offered to them. CIDCO is also involving the locals in the pre-project work, which requires demolishing a local hill, levelling of the site and increasing its height by four metres.

It is a huge contract of about Rs 1,400 crore, but there is a clause, which requires the contractor to hire the services of the cooperative societies of local residents for 50 per cent of the work. In effect, local residents will get a Rs 700 crore contract.

What will be the nature of the contract between CIDCO and the airport developer?

The contract would be awarded on a revenue sharing basis in which the airport developer offering the highest percentage of revenue would become the airport operator.

Since the GVK Group is the developer at the existing Mumbai airport, under the law, it will have the first right of refusal for developing the Navi Mumbai airport. However, a number of airport developers including Zurich Airport Company are also keen to develop the new airport. When the bids open, all major airport developers will bid for it.

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