Phased shifting of Mumbai airport slums from year-end

Traffic projection of 40 mn passengers for 2013.

The much-debated shifting of slums encroaching on 276 acres of land at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport here will start from November this year.

However, only about a fourth of the encroached land will be freed to begin with, admits Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL). All the dwellers have to be rehabilitated and only land enough for a quarter has been found so far by HDIL, the firm that has the contract for doing so, says Sanjay Reddy, MIAL’s managing director. He hopes the process will be completed in four more years.

The GVK Industries-led consortium, which was given the contract to run MIAL almost three years ago, plans to use the freed land for airport development.

MIAL has projected the growth in passenger capacity to 40 million by 2013. It currently handles 23 million a year.

The land constraints, the airport being in the heart of the city, have plagued MIAL’s plans. Reddy says MIAL, despite all these problems, is progressing. “We were ranked 55th (in the global ranking o f airports) when we took over in 2006 and climbed to 40th spot in 2007. We want to be among the world’s top 20 by 2013,” he said.

He said they hoped to get the contract for the proposed Navi Mumbai airport as they have first right of refusal. If that happens, they will be able to enhance the overall capacity in and around Mumbai to 80 million passengers a year by 2025.

The primary aim of MIAL is to complete the new integrated terminal (at the site of the current international terminal at Sahar) by the end of 2012. The current domestic terminal at Santa Cruz will then be mainly used for cargo operations.

Apart from starting the slum rehabilitation, MIAL officials claim they will complete this year the construction of domestic terminal 1C, which will link both existing terminals, 1B and 1C.

A new air traffic control tower would be completed by 2010. One challenge will be deciding how to upgrade the runways. “We will have to decide whether to have the airport closed for a few hours (daily) over many months or shut it for a day or two (every week) for a few months,” said Reddy.