Mumbai to relocate airport slums

Mumbai: Vast tracts of salt pan land could ease up Mumbai's staggering housing problem with the Centre's willingness to open it up for slum rehabilitation.
The Mumbai airport is eyeing at least 180 acres to rehouse 32 slums with at least 65,000 families that are currently occupying airport land. Specifically salt pan land in Mulund, Kanjurmarg, Wadala in the east and Borivali in the west.
At least five private builders have already shown an interest in helping out the Mumbai airport through SRA model, wherein a private developer will construct houses for slum-dwellers.
''They are quite large tracts of land straddling about 5,000 acres. We are also looking whether there are urban lands available,'' said GV Sanjay Reddy, MD, Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL).
MIAL says that at the end, these slum dwellers are encroachers and not legal residents of the land and they will have to go in the next three-five years. The removal of the slums on airport land will free 276 acres of land right in the heart of the city, land that is crucial for upgrading the Mumbai airport.
25/05/07 Miloni Bhatt/NDTV.com

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Categories: Airports May 2007