Mumbai: Due to inordinate delays in land acquisition and securing environment clearance, among others, the second airport in Mumbai, the Navi Mumbai International Airport ( NMIA), may not take off before 2017, according to experts. The first phase of the airport was supposed to be operational by end-2014 or early 2015.
More than the delays, it will be cost escalation that will hurt the project, said industry observers. The first phase of the project is pegged at about Rs 9,000 crore. Any further delays could push up the costs, experts warned.
While the project has got environment clearance — which took a good three years — it is still grappling with issues related to land acquisition.
Land preparation, planning and construction of phase-1 could require about 50 months, according to a report by the Observer Research Foundation, which quoted Ansgar Sickert, former India head of German airport company Fraport.
23/12/12 Aneesh Phadnis/Business Standard
