Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated the first phase of Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA), describing it as a “glimpse of Viksit Bharat” that would help make the Mumbai region Asia’s biggest connectivity hub.
The first phase of the NMIA, also the country’s largest greenfield airport, has been built at a cost of ₹19,650 crore and is set to be operational in December. An aircraft carrying Modi landed at the new airport, the second one in the Mumbai region, around 2.40pm. Spread across 1,160 hectares, the airport will have one terminal and one runway in the first phase with an annual passenger handling capacity of 20 million.
At the event, Modi targeted the Congress over the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, appearing to refer to former home minister P. Chidambaram’s recent comment that India had considered retaliating but eventually chose restraint under international pressure.
Without naming Chidambaram, Modi said: “According to the Opposition leader, the government halted the military response due to pressure from a foreign country.”
Modi said the Congress’s “weakness emboldened terrorists and compromised national security, a cost the country paid with innocent lives”.
The Navi Mumbai airport has been developed under the public-private partnership model. The NMIA will work in tandem with Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport to ease congestion and elevate Mumbai to the league of global multi-airport systems.
The NMIA is managed by Navi Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd — a joint venture of Mumbai International Airport Ltd, a subsidiary of Adani Airports Holdings Ltd that has a 74 per cent stake, and the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd, which holds 26 per cent.