The Union Government Cleared 2000 Crore Rupees Project for Juhu Airport Redevelopment

The Union Government of India decided to redevelop the Juhu Airport of Mumbai by extending runway 650 metres into sea. This has been done to ease the congestion of traffic at Chhatrapati Shivaji International (CSI) Airport. It is worth noticing that this is the first ever kind of a project in India where the realigning and extension of the runway would be done into the sea.

The government planned that the Juhu runway would be operational by 2017. It is forecasted that by 2017, the CSI Airport would become completely saturated. The Juhu Airport thus would cater to the small turboprop and the private jets along with ATR operations that encompass approximately 15 percent of total operations of CSI Airport. This means that there would be a diversion in aircraft movement from CSI to Juhu Airport by around 15 percent. Apart from this, the Juhu Airport would also cater to the helicopter operations with its second and smaller runway.

The cost of the project is estimated to be somewhere around 2000 crore Rupees. The Juhu Airport runway will run parallel to CSI main runway. Both these airports would be able to take on landings as well as take offs simultaneously.

The decision on whether this project would be taken up by public-private partnership or Airports Authority of India (AAI) is yet to be decided. Feasibility options for Juhu Airport development were studied at a recent meeting of AAI, Maharashtra government officials as well as Aviation Ministry.

The Aviation Ministry explained that the Bandra Versova sea-link as well as redevelopment of Juhu Airport projects would be done in such a way that both these can co-exist. Concerns over environmental issues and hampering of Juhu Beach area would be considered as well.