Saturday, January 12, 2013

Crores waived in fees for buildings near Juhu airport


Mumbai: The cash-starved Airports Authority of India (AAI) has lost tens of crores of rupees by charging builders a pittance, or nothing at all, for permission to increase the heights of projects in the vicinity of Juhu airport to above the upper limit set to ensure the safety of flight operations. The airport is the only one in the country for which the AAI has not been levying such fees.
While the AAI dropped the fees from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 2 lakh and then completely did away with the levy for projects within 20km of the airport, the main area where norms were flouted was within 2.5km of the airport, where the AAI allowed buildings to rise to 56.27 metres above mean sea level (AMSL), even though the upper limit for safe flight operations is 49.87m AMSL.
12/01/13 Manju V/Times of India
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