Navi Mumbai airport will be Operational in December 2018.

City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) plans to start the pre-development work, including relocation of power transmission lines and reclamation of land site, for the Navi Mumbai airport from January.

The work, expected to cost Rs 2,000 crore and take a year to complete, will commence after the completion of land acquisition later this month. According to Cidco’s planning, the first phase of the Rs 14,500-crore Navi Mumbai airport will be ready by December 2018.

“Our officials are fine tuning the details with the Indian Institute of Technology,” said V Radha, CIDCO’s joint managing director. Sources said bids for the pre-development work will be issued next week.

The work includes reclamation of marsh land, increasing the level of land from 0-2 m to 5 m above mean sea level, flattening of hillocks, diversion of the Ulwe river and relocation of power lines. The pre-development work will be funded by Cidco, and the cost will be included in the total project cost.

Cidco is likely to opt for underground cable network in the airport area, instead of merely relocating overhead transmission lines through an alternate patch of land. This is because underground cabling will not require much land. A final decision is yet to be taken.

“Tata Power has got four lines of 220 KV/110 KV passing through the area. We have given two options to Cidco — either divert the lines away from the zone of the airport or convert them into underground cable system, bypassing the airport zone. Tata Power would prefer the option of diversion since in that case, the lines can later be upgraded, whenever required. However, in public interest, we will accept the option of underground cable system,” said a Tata Power spokesperson.

Mumbai’s second airport project has been delayed owing to environment clearance issues and land acquisition problems. However, in a positive development, the Bombay High Court last week directed project-affected persons to accept the compensation plan offered by the government by October 6. Cidco expects the land acquisition process to be complete by October-end. Bidders, too, have to submit the request for qualification documents by October 30.

About 671 hectares of private land is still to be acquired, and officials are hopeful of completing the process by the end of this month. The project's total land requirement is 2,268 hectares. About 1,160 hectares will be used for aeronautical purposes (construction of terminals, runway, taxiway, etc).

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