Survey to clear airport slums, plan rehab gains speed

Mumbai: Waking up finally to the painfully slow progress on clearing the country’s busiest airport of 80,000 shanties squatting on 276 acres of Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport’s (CSIA) land, Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel on Friday told the state government that inaction would no longer be acceptable.
Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh ordered the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to complete the survey and draw up two lists of eligible shanty-owners, separate ones for slums existing pre-1995 and pre-2000.
The stringent deadline now means that the MMRDA, the nodal agency appointed by MIAL for the resettlement and rehabilitation, will have to conclude the baseline socio-economic survey and plane table survey in record time — it was supposed tobe over in December 2006. Currently, of the 31 slum pockets dotting the airport periphery, surveys have been concluded in less than 20.
Officials said that Patel pointed out that while the Delhi and Bangalore airports had been modernised, a lot was left to be desired regarding the Mumbai airport.
30/03/07 Expressindia.com

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Categories: Airports Mar 2007