Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated the much-anticipated Navi Mumbai International Airport, a move that should over time reduce Mumbai’s over-dependency on the already congested Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA). It will also become the first and the only city in India to boast two international airports.
The inauguration of the Navi Mumbai airport propels India’s financial capital into the league of major global cities like New York, London, Moscow and Tokyo among several others that have multiple international airports.
“Today Mumbai’s long wait is over. Mumbai has got its second international airport. This airport will play a big role in establishing this region as Asia’s biggest connectivity hub,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while inaugurating the airport.
Spanning over 1,160 hectares on completion, NMIA is designed to handle 90 million passenger per annum when fully completed. The airport will feature two parallel runways, four state-of-the-art terminal buildings, and advanced cargo facilities, ensuring seamless passenger experience and efficient cargo handling.
In the initial phase, NMIA will have one terminal and one runway, with the capacity to manage 20 million passengers per annum and 0.5 million tonnes of cargo annually.
NMIA has been a long time coming. The idea of a new airport for Mumbai was first conceived in the late 1990s. By 2007, the Union cabinet gave its in-principle approval for a new greenfield airport in Navi Mumbai. The bidding eventually took place in 2017, and the project was awarded to Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), owned by GVK. Gautam Adani’s Adani Airport Holdings took over MIAL in April 2021, thereby taking control of NMIA.
Commercial flights from NMIA are expected to commence from December this year. Leading Indian carriers – Indigo, Air India and Akasa – have already announced operational plans from NMIA, including domestic and international departures. Indigo has plans to operate 18 daily departures initially and Air India Express 20. Akasa has plans to operate 100 weekly departures. All the airlines will scale up operations gradually over the next few months once commercial flights begin.
“This airport is an engineering marvel. To build this airport, a hill had to be flattened, a river had to be diverted... This is not just an airport, but it will play a crucial role in the development of Maharashtra and India; it has capacity to raise Maharashtra’s GDP by 1 per cent,” Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said.
Over the last few decades, Mumbai has grown by leaps and bounds, with millions of people migrating to the city from within Maharashtra and from many other states. But, for years the city’s infrastructure didn’t kept pace with the rising population and in turn growing infrastructure demand. CSMIA has already hit its full capacity of 55 million and since its in the heart of the city, with slums on one side and the sea on the other, there is no space left for it to expand.
NMIA, located in the Raigad district near Panvel, in the east of south Mumbai is about 35 km from CSMIA. As the city expands, the state government has started work on a new satellite city project called ‘Third Mumbai’ in the Raigad district. The airport will be key to enhancing connectivity in this region.
In his speech, Prime Minister Modi stressed that in the past several years, the government has given a lot of emphasis on improving the ease of living of people and therefore huge investments are being made on rail, road, airports and metro rail projects. He pointed that in 2014, India only had 74 airport, today there are over 160.
He noted that India has emerged as the third largest domestic aviation market in the world and pointed Indian airlines have placed orders of close to 1,000 aircraft. As the number of aircraft increase, their maintenance and repair work will also increase and the Prime Minister said the government wants to see India as a large MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) hub by the end of this decade.
Apart from inaugurating the airport on Wednesday, Modi also inaugurated the final stretch of Mumbai’s first and only completely underground Metro Line 3.
The Metro Line 3 was already operational between Aarey-JVLR in the in the north to Worli in the south. With the final stretch from Worli to Cuffe Parade now inaugurated, the entire 33.5 km line will be fully operational.
The final stretch adds 11 stations, including key railway hubs of Mumbai Central and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. It will also pass under some of the most dense areas of the Mumbai city like Girgaon and Kalbadevi. The overall cost of the Mumbai Metro Line 3 has been around Rs 37,270 crore.
Apart from the new airport and the metro line, the Mumbai One app was also launched on Wednesday with the aim to offer seamless connectivity to commuters in Mumbai. It will allow Mumbaikars to travel seamlessly, integrating metro rail, suburban trains, mono rail and public transport buses through this single common mobility platform.
“Unless all the transportation systems don’t come on one platform, there is no end-to-end solution that can benefit people. Now whether its metro or bus or suburban rail, there will be only one ticket to travel everywhere,” pointed out Fadnavis.