Nagpur

The proposed Navi Mumbai international airport in Kopra-Panvel will begin operations from 2019, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told the Maharashtra Legislative Council here today.

“The process of getting permits from various departments shall be completed by January 2015 and the first phase of this airport will start functioning from 2019,” Fadnavis said replying to a calling attention motion brought by members Sanjay Datta, Bhai Jagtap, Husnabai Khalife, Sharad Ranpise and Dipti Choudhary.

“We have already acquired 592 hectares of land for it and all major clearances have been received by the government.

Only a few sanctions are left.. we will get it by January 2015. After getting all the sanctions, we will go in for financial bids for construction,” he told the House.

The total project cost of this largest greenfield airport should be around Rs 14,573 crore, he said.

CIDCO is the nodal agency for the work. The first part of the NMIA airport will have a capacity to handle 10 million passengers per year.

Also, the airport will help creating new jobs. The entire project is based on Public Private Partnership model and it will lend a new direction to the development agenda of the state, he said.

The government has acquired land for this upcoming airport in Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) after providing a compensation of Rs 14 crore per hectare.

The airport is being built with an aim to ease air traffic congestion at Mumbai’s Santa Cruz airport and also to divert population influx in the metropolis to the new town.

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