Government approves second stage of bidding for Navi Mumbai airport

Mumbai: The Union government has given its approval for second stage of bidding for the proposed ₹ 15,000 crore Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA).

The approval for the financial bid documents or the request for proposal (RFP) paves the way for selecting the final consortium for development of the greenfield airport at Navi Mumbai, City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) said in a statement.

On 30 December, the civil aviation ministry reviewed the draft bid stage documents for NMIA and accorded green signal to commence the RFP stage of the international competitive bidding process, it said.

“During the meeting, civil aviation ministry emphasized that the timely implementation of the project... was critical in light of the growth in air traffic and the ever increasing congestion at Mumbai airport both on air and land side,” it said.

Cidco will now finalize the documents after incorporating the observations of the ministry and issue the RFP to pre-qualified applicants to commence the second stage of bidding.

“It is expected that selected concessionaire will be in place by mid 2016 and first flight from Navi Mumbai airport will take off by the last quarter of 2019, thus commencing phase I of airport operations,” it added.

Cidco had invited the global tenders for request for qualification on 5 February 2014. It received nine bids out of which four have been shortlisted. The four companies include GMR Group, GVK-led MIAL, Hiranandani Developers along with Zurich Airport, and Mia Infrastructure with Tata Realty and Infrastructure. PTI