Dinesh Kamath's news item 'Land acquisition for Intl. Airport and MTHL projects still in progress' that was published in Newsband

Land acquisition for Intl. Airport and MTHL projects still in progress

By Dinesh Kamath

NAVI MUMBAI: Last week, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said in a written reply to a question raised in the legislative assembly that acquisition of 291 hectares of private land for Navi Mumbai airport out of a total land requirement of 2,072 hectares was delayed due to opposition from project-affected people.

While City and Industrial Development Corporation had offered 12.5 per cent of the developed land as compensation, the stakeholders are demanding return of at least 30 per cent of developed land.

Land acquisition from private parties for the Sewri-Nhava link is linked to the land acquisition process for the proposed Navi Mumbai international airport, as Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has decided to offer the same compensation package for Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL), too

With the state government struggling to convince project-affected people to hand over land for the airport, MMRDA is keeping open the option of acquiring land for MTHL independently

However, CIDCO is confident that the state government’s inability to reach a settlement with stakeholders will not affect the MTHL project.

Discussions with the project-affected people are in progress. The 22-km MTHL needs much less private land than Navi Mumbai airport. The MMRDA needed to acquire 125 hectares for the Rs 9,630-crore MTHL, of which just 28 hectares is private land in villages of Gavai, Jasan and Chirle in Uran taluka. With the exception of this private land parcel, the MMRDA has got approvals from the government authorities concerned to acquire the rest of the land. The development agency hopes to get complete right of way before the construction begins, which is expected by the year-end.