Mumbai not alone in airport land problem

Mumbai: It’s not just in Mumbai. Airport land across the country faces the threat of encroachment, with illegal occupants having control of 788 acres—20 times the size of Nariman Point—in the high-security area near runways.
While the Mumbai airport tops the list prepared by the Airports Authority of India with 247 acres (this, however, may not be the accurate figure as the airport no longer belongs to AAI) in the control of encroachers, it is followed by Satna in Madhya Pradesh with 150 acres, Hyderabad with 97 acres, Amritsar with 83 acres and Kolkata with 75.7 acres.
Mumbai and Delhi mostly have slum-dwellers sitting on airport land, but in other cities, especially the non-metro ones, encroachments usually mean small establishments, hotels, shops and even companies providing support to airlines.
“It’s only in Mumbai and Delhi that slums account for a majority of the encroachments. In other airports, the encroachers are private parties like small establishments, hotels, shops etc who have encroached on large tracts of land,’’said R N Pathak, consultant, AAI.
With the Rs 500-crore development plan for 23 non-metro airports already under way, the first steps towards encroachment removal have been taken, claimed Pathak.
11/06/07 Times of india

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Categories: Airports Jun 2007