The City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), the nodal agency for India’s Navi Mumbai International airport, will call for bids to conduct pre-development work of the proposed airport in the next few days.
The bids are expected to be called in the next 15 days, The Economic Times reported, citing a government official.
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Once this process is completed, the pre-development work will commence.
The pre-development work, which will be completed by the end of Match, includes levelling of ground, flattening of hills and removing green patches.
CIDCO managing director Sanjay Bhatia was quoted by the publication as saying: "In the next one month, we will give out request for proposals to three entities shortlisted for the next round of bidding.
"We expect the bidders to revert in four-five months after that."
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By GlobalDataThe bidders currently in the list include GMR, GVK’s unit Mumbai International Airport Ltd MIAL and Mia Infrastructure, which is a joint venture between Tata Realty & Infrastructure Ltd TRIL and French company Vinci Concessions.
Recently, the alliance between Hiranandani Group and Zurich Airports was not qualified by CIDCO.
CIDCO is waiting for approval from the Project Monitoring and Implementation Committee PMIC, which was set up by the Union Civil Aviation Ministry for quick implementation of projects, as well as by the Cabinet of the Maharashtra state government.
Last February, with the issuance of RFQ, CIDCO had begun the first phase of the two stage bidding process.
Spread over an area of 2,867 acres with a terminal building of 5,23,000m2 and two runways, the Rs 145.73bn ($2.1bn) project is considered to be essential alternative option as the present airport is heavily congested.
Initially, the government had given its approval to the proposal of establishing the airport in 2007; however, the plan since then faced several problems including land acquisition.
Image: The existing Mumbai airport is heavily congested. Photo: Courtesy of Prateek Karandikar/Wikipedia.
