Mumbai airport offers deal to squatters

New Delhi: Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd (MIAL) has promised 'golden handshake' for the estimated 60,000 families living in the slums around the airport, who will be displaced for the airport's expansion.
The promise was made before a Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan.
The company had appealed to the Supreme Court against an order of the Bombay High Court which fixed 1995 as the cut-off year for the rehabilitation of the displaced.
The Maharashtra government had earlier changed the year from 1995 to 2000. The Supreme Court today set 2000 as the cut-off year. The Rs 52-billion project will double the airport's capacity by 2014.
Senior counsel for the company, Harish Salve, told the court that there would be a problem in identifying the people who had settled before the cut-off year.
However, if the uncertainty about the cut-off date was cleared, the company would rehabilitate the project-affected, he added. They would get money, houses, shops and other benefits, he said.
08/05/07 Business Standard

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Categories: Airports May 2007, New May 2007