Many more hurdles on way to New Chakan Airport

Pune: The state cabinet's nod for an international airport in the Chakan-Rajgurunagar belt, 35 kilometres north of the city, gives fresh hope for the ambitious project finally seeing the light of the day.
However, it will still be long before Pune's airport dream comes true considering that the newly authorised Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) will have to go through the entire process of securing fresh clearances from various union ministries and central agencies.
Not to mention, the re-notification process for acquiring 3,365 hectare land for the project, which was first mooted in 2000-01 but has failed to go beyond papers owing to change of plans at different stages. For instance, the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) was to implement the project before the MADC came into picture on May 15, 2008. By then, the MIDC had notified 2,565 hectare, covering Rajgurunagar and adjoining six villages, and was about to appoint agencies to carry out the techno-economic feasibility study (TEFS) and the topograhpic survey investigation (TSI) of the project site. All this changed when the MADC was asked by the government to takeover the projectthus resulting in fresh issues regarding land acquisition and clearances.
On Wednesday, the state cabinet gave its administrative sanction to the proposed airport to be built on a public-private partnership (PPP) basis, and naming the project as New Chakan Airport', an official release stated on Thursday. The cabinet resolved to seek clearances from union ministries for civil aviation, defence, environment and forests besides the Airports Authority of India (AAI). It approved the MADC as the special planning authority for land acquisition and development of the proposed airport.
While there were reports about the cabinet's clearance to a Rs 200-crore seed money for the project, the government's official release made no specific mention about any decision to this effect.
20/02/09 Viswas Kothari/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Feb 2009, New Feb 2009