AAI stakes claim on Dahisar land, revives office

Mumbai: A 63-acre plot belonging to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) located in the faraway western suburb of Dahisar finds itself in the news after the AAI started deputing an officer for daily duty there to man its receiving station that lay defunct till about 15 months ago.
The move to send an AAI officer daily to a hitherto unmanned station has raised some eyebrows within aviation circles in Mumbai.
There are hints with the AAI union that the move could have been done to thwart any proposal by the Mumbai International Airports Ltd (MIAL), a GVK-SA led consortium, the new airport management, to utilize vacant land around this plot to relocate part of the slums that have encroached on airport land or atleast to build transit camps there.
On the face of it, MIAL has denied any such move. AAI, on the other hand, has gone to great lengths to explain how this station had become important in the face of ever increasing air traffic and hence the need to re-start it. The plot is located about 17 kms from the Mumbai airport.
04/11/06 Suman Layak & Lalatendu Mishra/Hindustan Times

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