CIDCO Completes Land Acquisition Exercise For Navi Mumbai International Airport

The construction of the Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) has reached a significant milestone, with authority for the project, namely, the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), reportedly purchasing all the land needed for the project's development.

The Maharashtra government's town planning authority evicted all 3,070 structures in the project area and has handed over the entire 2,866 acres (1,160 hectares) of land to Adani Enterprises, the concessionaire for the development of the Greenfield project.

These structures included public and private buildings, churches as well as community temples, schools, and cemeteries. CIDCO also completed all necessary and important pre-development works in the airport area.

Resettlement and Rehabilitation

The International airport project is being developed by CIDCO on an area of 1,160 hectares by acquiring 10 villages in Panvel Taluka of Raigad district in the state of Maharashtra.

Considering the contribution made by the Project Affected People (PAP) of the project, CIDCO availed a comprehensive rehabilitation package approved by the government of Maharashtra.

As part of this package, for the rehabilitation of those affected by the airport project, CIDCO is developing Pushpak Nagar, a complete rehabilitation and resettlement area with all the physical, social and cultural infrastructure near the airport area.

The rehabilitation of the more than 5,000 families from the evicted buildings to the rehabilitation and resettlement area is near completion according to CIDCO.

Project Importance

Mumbai - the financial capital of India, and the capital city of the state of Maharashtra forms the largest urban center within the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). With a set of two cross runways, the existing Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) was handling more than its peak capacity of 4.8 crore passengers per annum before Covid struck in March 2020.

Enhancement of airport capacity to handle projected air traffic demand of MMR in future is critical for maintaining Maharashtra’s leadership in attracting Foreign Direct Investment and cementing Mumbai’s future as an International Financial Centre as annual air passenger traffic is expected to grow over 160 million by 2038.

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) alone will be unable to handle such an increase in demand. It is, therefore, imperative to build a second Airport for MMR. NMIA, will be the second airport for MMR area.

The NMIA is an ongoing project, being developed by Navi Mumbai International Airport Ltd (NMIAL) as an international airport planned to cater to the growing air travel demand of Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

The project scope includes development of an International Airport (in phases) with a capacity to handle minimum 60 million passengers per annum (MPPA) and 1.5 million tonnes cargo per annum.

The airport is being developed in compliance with Concessionaire Agreement of the project signed between the CIDCO and NMIAL, and in compliance with applicable airport development norms of Airport Authority of India (AAI), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Directorate General of Civil Aviation, GoI (DGCA), etc.

In the initial phase, NMIAL will implement passenger capacity of 20 MPPA and 800,000 tonnes per annum of cargo handling, which is expected to be completed by December 2024.

The Maharashtra cabinet on 16 July cleared a proposal to name the upcoming airport after late D B Patil, who had led several farmers and landowners protests in Panvel district when the CIDCO had acquired land in the area in the 1970s and ’80s.

Timeline

In 2017 after concluding open tender process for selection of private strategic partner to develop NMIA project on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model, CIDCO issued Letter of Award (LoA) to Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd (MIAL) as Selected Bidder.

Navi Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd. (NMIAL), a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) was formed for implementation of the project on Design, Build, Finance Operate, and Transfer (DBFOT) basis with MIAL holding 74 per cent and CIDCO with 26 per cent in the SPV.

In January 2006, the GVK led consortium, comprising of Airports Company South Africa and Bidvest won the bid to manage and operate Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA). To accomplish this task, Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd. was formed by the GVK led consortium (74 per cent) and Airports Authority of India (26 per cent).

Adani Airport Holdings Ltd (AAHL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Ltd, in July 2021 took over MIAL from GKV group.

In March 2022, Adani Enterprises’ subsidiary and NMIAL had announced achieving financial closure for the airport with the execution of financing documents with the State Bank of India (SBI). The public sector lender, SBI has underwritten the entire debt requirement of Rs 12,770 crore for the project.

Also Read: Chennai's Second Airport At Parandur To Be Built With Rs 20,000 Crore With Capacity To Handle 100 Million Passengers