Navi Mumbai: A city that halts heart

The residents of Navi Mumbai have to wait for one more year as the 11-km Belapur-Pendhar metro line is expected to be completed by 2018.

To ease the burden of Mumbai, a very well planned city is flourishing day by day namely Navi Mumbai – the carbon copy of Mumbai but in a better planned way is becoming a remarkable city due to top notch infra development taking place. These developments would not have been possible without aggressive efforts taken by the CIDCO. CIDCO is the nodal government agency who took the agenda to take Navi Mumbai to a different level. To understand more about how CIDCO is further planning to give the city a global platform Dr Mohan Ninawe, Sr. Public Relations Officer, CIDCO speaks to Kshitija Kolhapure about the latest happenings on ongoing infra developments in Navi Mumbai.

Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA)
The development of much-awaited proposed greenfield international airport project finally gathered its momentum in February after GVK Group bagged the contract. A single runway is expected to be made operational by 2019. The implementing authority of the project, the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), is working on different levels to complete the project on time.

Settlement and Rehabilitation of PAPs
Maharashtra government has finalised a package of 22.5 per cent land to be provided for the settlement and rehabilitation of Project Affected Persons (PAPs) who are residing inside the core area in a place of the land that will be acquired for NMIA. Those who are not willing to part there land as per this package their land will be acquired as per Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (LARR) package finalised by the Government of India, informs Dr Ninawe.

Pre-development work
The pre-development work at the airport includes reclamation of marshy land, increasing the level of land above sea level, flattening of the 91-metre hill, diversion of the Ulwe river and relocation of some high voltage power lines.

“The pre-development work for NMIA is divided in to four packages. The work for two packages has already been awarded to the contractors and their work has already been started. The work related to remaining two packages recently awarded to a joint venture company Thakur Infra Projects – J M Mhatre Infra Projects. They will start their work very soon,” informed Dr Ninawe.

Appointment of strategic partner
Earlier four companies — GVK Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd (MIAL), GMR Airport Ltd, MIA Infrastructure (a joint venture of Tata Realty and VINCI Airport Concessions of France) and Voluptas Developers Pvt. Ltd (a consortium of -Hiranandani Group and Zurich Airports) were declared qualified participants for appointment of strategic partner.

CIDCO submitted financial proposal to all the qualified participants out of which it received only 2 applications from the 2 qualified bidders that is GVK and GMR. GVK bagged the financial bid by offering 12.44 per cent of their annual turnover which is highest among both of them. “The proposal submitted by both the agencies were evaluated and the final proposal was submitted to the cabinet of Government of Maharashtra who in their upcoming cabinet meeting may declare the final bidder like GVK is the highest paying bidder so the cabinet will take the decision to award the bidder regarding the airport,” Dr Ninawe adds.

Funding the airport project
For the pre-development activity of NMIA, CIDCO has already invested about Rs 2,000 crore. GVK will arrange another Rs16,000 crore funds for further development of airport project.

Full-fledged construction of NMIA after monsoon
Though the pre-development work has been already begun, full-fledged construction may begin only after monsoon. “Once the entire land is developed, the actual work is expected to be seen on site by October-November this year,” he adds.

NAINA: A possible twin city of the financial capital
Apart from the airport project, CIDCO is developing the mega city Navi Mumbai Airport Influence Notified Area or NAINA. At 670 sq. kms, NAINA is going to be bigger than Mumbai. According to Dr Ninawe, the first phase of this ambitious project is expected to be completed within 5 years time.

Panvel-Uran railway corridor
Central Railway (CR) and CIDCO are jointly developing the 27-km rail line between Nerul and Uran with 10 stations, including Seawoods, Sagar Sangam, Targhar, Bamandongri, Kharkopar, Gavan, Ranjanpada, Nhava Sheva, Dronagiri and Uran. The 12-km stretch from Seawoods to Kharkopar is expected to get operationalise by June 2018, Dr Ninawe said. According to railway authority, the entire project has to be completed by June 2019.

Navi Mumbai Metro Rail
After missing couple of vital deadlines, the much-awaited Navi Mumbai Metro Rail (NMMR) project is finally on track. “The residents of Navi Mumbai have to wait for one more year as the 11-km Belapur-Pendhar metro line is expected to be completed by 2018,” asserts an optimistic Dr Ninawe.

He observes that the permissions from the concerned authorities needed to pass the metro track above the existing railway line and Sion-Panvel highway were the major hurdles for delay execution of Metro projects.

Also, the development of Metro station buildings should have been completed by the end of 2016 but the same could not be achieved as the contractor delayed the work. “We have taken appropriate actions and cancelled the contract which was previously awarded to the agency. Now we are on track and are expecting the project to be completed on the scheduled time,” he said.

Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (MTHL) project
The proposed 22-km Trans-Harbour link, which will connect Sewri and Nhava Sheva, is expected to be the longest sea bridge in India. The construction of the project has been divided into three parts. The first two are sea-bridge components while the third is for construction of a road up to Chirle. According to Dr Ninawe, “The major benefits of MTHL project will be for the Navi Mumbaikars as one landing side will be at Chirle village in Navi Mumbai.”

Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) will be the implementing authority for this project. The project has got traction as MMRDA has already floated tenders and around 17 agencies have expressed their interest for development of this project.

Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) has given their consent to finance for this ambitious project.

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