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Cidco in serious talks with premier tech body to cut Ulwe hill for new airport

 

NAVI MUMBAI | Feb 16, 2017: Cidco is in talks with Central institute of mining and fuel research (CIMFR), a constituent laboratory of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR). It is an autonomous government body and India's largest research and development (R&D) organisation.

 

The premier CMFR is based in Dhanbad in Jharkhand and has several big projects to its credit. A Cidco team recently visited Kolkata to hold talks with the premier institute for what is described as a rare kind of operation of both hill cutting and land filling amounting to a whopping 35 million cubic meter or 3.5 crore cubic metres of debris from the around 3 km long Ulwe hill to develop the Navi Mumbai international airport (NMIA). Cidco claims no other airport in India or elsewhere could have involved both the operations as there were instances of sea being filled up for airport as in Hong Kong, but not a case where both hill was cut and land filling done for developing an airport.

 

The hill cutting to 8 meter level will be the airport base where the two runways, terminal building, hangar and air traffic control tower besides other infra works will be developed. The height is almost double the high flood level pegged at 4.5 meter

 

The talks are in final stages and the CIMFR will submit the cost of blasting operation for Cidco to take a call. The institute has been associated with premier infra projects like the Koyna dam, nuclear power plants and also road infra works in high altitude hilly areas in Jammu and Kashmir, Cidco said.

 

Sources pointed out issues discussed with CIMR by Cidco's engineering department have been regarding the nature of rocky substance and the designing of the blasting. It is largely sedimentary and basalt rock and would require different type of designing at various places.

 

The distance of drilling on the hill for blasting it, the power of explosives are important aspects with a view to minimising the noise and dispersion, for there are 10 villages in the core area whose 3500 families need to be shifted at the earliest for the full scale unhindered works to start subject to the crucial stage II forest clearance from MoEF for which Cidco has asked Raigad collector to pace up the administrative procedure of convening the gram sabha to obtain the 50% consent of villagers that there are no tribal rights on the some 261 hectares of forest land that is in the hill area and river stretch that will be diverted.

 

"I cannot sleep peacefully anymore. If we do not get enough land for our cattle and if we cannot get access to pasture lands, what will we do? I have reasoned with the people who were sent to disconnect our electricity connections. They were kind, and they listened to us this time. They even said they would disconnect connections to pumps that draw water from wells outside the area demarcated for acquisition. How can we allow that?" Pratap Singh asked. "In three years, there have been 13 deaths from shock."

 

 

(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)