The Mumbai International Airport is widely considered to be the second-most efficient airport in the world with as many landings and take-offs as Heathrow in the UK, government said in Rajya Sabha.
“Our airports are second to none in terms of their efficiency in operations. I would like to inform the member that the second-most efficient airport in the world is widely considered to be Mumbai airport which has as many landings and take-offs which the UK airport has. Our airports are performing very efficiently,” Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said during question hour.
He also informed the house that the entire land acquisition for expansion of Tuticorin airport in Tamil Nadu is likely to be completed by September this year, after which, narrow body jets would be able to land there.
Replying to supplementaries on the expansion of Tuticorin airport, the minister said the request for expansion of the airport was for first made in 2004 which is being diligently pursued by the ministry.
“We had made a request to the state government many years ago to provide us additional land so that we can expand the runway and land jets there. That request has been pending. We had asked for 586 acres to the state government. We have recently been informed by the state government that by September 2017, the entire land acquisition for Tuticorin airport would be done and then we would be able to land narrow body jets,” he said.
Sinha said the standard procedure by which land is taken over was under the Airports Authority Act and then the necessary investments are made. He also informed the members that the ministry has expansion plans for all airports in the country.
In another instancem, the GVK group, which runs the Mumbai airport, has won the contract to build the much-delayed Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA), pipping the rival GMR group.
The GVK-led Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) has beaten the rival GMR Infrastructure that runs the nation’s largest airport in Delhi to win the bid to develop the INR 16,000-crore airport in Navi Mumbai.
The contract award comes decades after the state government first mooted the project.
“While GMR offered 10.44 per cent of revenue share, GVK has offered 12.60 per cent of revenue share, thus winning the bid,” City and Industrial and Development Corporation (CIDCO) said in a statement.
The evaluation committee will prepare a report on qualified bids, which will be sent to the state cabinet for its approval that will take a final call on selection of the bidder.
The two companies submitted their bids to CIDCO after the authority granted two extensions.
The government approved building the Navi Mumbai airport as early as 2007, but the project ran into inordinate delay arising out of environmental concerns and land acquisition issues. The project will be carried out on a public-private partnership model and CIDCO will incur pre-development work costs, which it will be later recovered from GVK.
(PTI)
