Mumbai airport upgrade may be delayed
An 18-month to two-year delay is expected in the Mumbai airport slum rehabilitation programme to find alternative land to relocate and resettle approximately 80,000 slum-dwellers, who have encroached on 276 acres of airport land. The delay will seriously impact the expansion and modernisation of the country's second-busiest airport. The GVK-led consortium, which is modernising the airport, had appointed Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL) to work out a slum resettlement programme to identify alternative land and relocate people in four phases. Once free, this airport land was to be used to augment the runway system and, therefore, increase the airport's ability to handle more passengers. The first phase of the slum resettlement was to be completed in 18 months with a deadline of April 2009 and the second phase by October 2009. The target date for the final phase was October 2011. But HDIL's managing director, Sarang Wadhawan, told Business Standard: "It will be at least two-and-a-half years before the first slum-dweller is shifted.' What this means is that the relocation of slum dwellers even of the first phase can only begin only in late 2010. The delay is chiefly because HDIL is keen to take all stakeholders, especially the local administration, on board its plans. The company has asked for time to make a presentation on the programme. "It is important to take the corporators, councillors and NGOs into confidence,' said Wadhawan. The slum rehab policy demands that at least 70 per cent of the affected dwellers give the developer consent to move. The survey work to identify the exact number of slum -dwellers is yet to begin but the company said it had already identified the land for slum resettlement from its land reserves. It has earmarked 147.5 acres, nearly 6 per cent of its vast land bank in the city, for the project. Under regulations, the relocation has to take place around the airport and each family, irrespective of size, is to be given a dwelling of 225 sq foot.