L&T fears Navi Mumbai airport project may cost Rs 5000 cr more

Mumbai: India's biggest infrastructure and engineering conglomerate L&T has raised fears that Navi Mumbai airport's project cost will shoot up by Rs 5,000 crore due to the Union Cabinet's nod to the Land Acquisition Bill, which threatens to increase the project cost.
Besides L&T, other infrastructure companies, which are on the hunt for new projects, are also likely to get into a spot of bother over the new compensation package proposed by the Bill.
"How are you going to ever put up a project, because the airport project cost will go up by Rs 5,000 crore," said AM Naik, CMD, L&T, voicing fears that farmers would now expect the compensation package to go up by 5-6 times once the Bill is cleared by Parliament.
The Navi Mumbai airport project, at an estimated cost of Rs 9,800 crore, is the biggest infrastructure project on offer in Mumbai, and corporates like Reliance, the Tatas, GVK and GMR, (both south-based companies that operate four metro airports, including Delhi and Mumbai) and HCC, among others, are keen to be associated with the project.
The cost of the airport project has already increased by 15% since it was announced in 2009. "The Land Acquisition will prove to be a major hurdle in Navi Mumbai since farmers are now asking for prohibitive prices," said a person involved with the project.
20/12/11 Economic Times

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Categories: airports Dec 2011, New Dec 2011