Green signal for Mumbai airport

An environment ministry committee on Wednesday cleared most green hurdles for Mumbai’s second international airport at Navi Mumbai but imposed tough conditions for the project.

Updated on: Nov 10, 2010, 22:50:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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An environment ministry committee on Wednesday cleared most green hurdles for Mumbai’s second international airport at Navi Mumbai but imposed tough conditions for the project.

The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) submitted its recommendations to environment minister Jairam Ramesh, who is expected to announce his decision by Friday.

“Not yet done,” Ramesh said but refused to elaborate further.

In Mumbai, civil aviation minister Praful Patel announced that the Navi Mumbai airport — to cater to 36 million people every year — had got environment clearance.

The airport had been a bone of contention between the two ministers on environment grounds.

“Most issues have been resolved,” said panel chairperson Naresh Dayal, who submitted the recommendations to the minister.

In most cases, the panel’s decision is final. But considering the minister’s personal interest in the project, the committee decided that Ramesh should take the final call.

Officials, however, said the real concerns about environment are addressed in several conditions that have been imposed on the City Industrial Development Organisation (CIDCO) to build the airport. “If any of the conditions is not met, the ministry has powers to scrap the clearance,” an official said.

Among the prominent conditions is no diversion of Gadhi and Ulwe rivers and a mangrove park of around 300 acres and shifting all non-aeronautical functions outside the main airport area. A minimum flow will have to be maintained in the two rivers throughout the year.

The panel has asked CIDCO to reduce the distance between two runways from 1,835 metres to 1,500 metres to minimise impact on two rivers. Also, Ulwe – a tidal river -- will flow below one of the runways, to which CIDCO had earlier objected. Demolition of the hill as demanded by CIDCO to construct runways have been accepted.

Another condition is that the airport cannot be made operational until improved public transportation, including dedicated road or mass rapid transport system corridors to access the airport, are built.

“Mass transport facility, suburban/ metro train may be built to interconnect all major airports of the city,” an official said.

The conditions are described as among the toughest for any airport in India and would mean a higher project cost for CIDCO. The ministry is also looking at the option of third-party monitoring for the project.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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