Resettle slum dwellers on airport land: SC

Mumbai: Slums on Mumbai airport land may finally go as the Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the go ahead to rehabilitate more encroachers on airport land.
There are nearly four lakh slum dwellers encroaching on nearly 300 acres of airport land in Mumbai.
Earlier, the cut off date to rehabilitate encroachers was those who had settled here up to January 1, 1995, which meant 25 to 30, 000 families would have been resettled.
Now, the Apex Court has extended the deadline for resettling those who had settled up to 2000, which means a total of 45-50,000 families will be resettled.
The order means more slums will be cleared and there will be more land for the overcrowded Mumbai airport to expand and build new cargo hubs and passenger facilities and much more.
The court order comes as a huge boost for the private company GVK that took over the Mumbai airport a year ago but hasn't been able to move ahead since the slums around the airport have been a major vote bank for Mumbai politicians.
08/05/07 Miloni Bhatt/NDTV.com

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Categories: Airports May 2007