Short term fix - Lease out HAL airport to BIAL?

navshot,

Here is a recent article about the business and economic aspect of HAL vs BIAL:

What happened to the hotel? HIA was building it along with the airport but BIA never even mentioned it. The onlything I have ever seen is the prototype pictures :) - so is the hotel coming up? I am sure if they have nothing started Nov 09 is the answer not Nov 08.

 I posted the following in a different forum a couple of weeks ago and have been waiting for at least one person from the "Re-open HAL" camp to respond.

I am curious. Assuming that HAL airport is allowed to reopen, there is bound to be some trepidation in the minds of foreign investors about doing business here. Has anyone (the business chambers, GoK etc.) done some serious scenario planning around potential negative sentiments in the investment community? If so, what is the consensus?  

I only have two data points here.  

The first one is in the public domain, an article written by Dr. Krishnadas Nair (former chairman of HAL) in the TOI. While he talks about the benefit of revenue flowing into HAL (the corporation) from continued commercial operations at the airport, he also argues strongly against going back on any contracts since this will affect future business prospects of HAL (which is beginning to be seen as  global supplier of aircraft parts) and other companies in India.  

The second data point is one that I picked up last week in Northern India. My hobby is to provide management development and strategic planning coaching to a large US investment group in Punjab that has plans to invest 100s of millions of $ in real estate development. This group invested in the largest software development center in the North outside the NCR in the early 2000. The first real estate project has already taken off. The chairman of this group is so frustrated with the way we play fast and loose with contracts and the law ( for example, he has lost a lot of money due to project rework because of how SEZ rules are made and changed  everyday). I got an earful from him for an entire day on this topic. I found this rather troubling. Believe me, people like this guy  keep their ears to the ground  and know what is going on in Bangalore vis a vis the airport. Even with the support of successive CMs and Finance Ministers of Punjab, he feels that our inconsistency in business practices makes it difficult to run his business.  

We may feel perfectly justified in taking certain steps by saying "the people want it" (this is a whole different debate), the investors are also fully justified in voting with their wallets. I am not saying that this will become imminent should HAL airport reopen but a full characterization by some agency that is bigger than just the local chamber of commerce (since this could have nation-wide implications)

The companies save a good chunk of money on their travel budgets by keeping HAL open. It helps them especially in these market conditions. This has nothing to do with general public. Let us hope Devesh's sources are wrong.

Exactly the point I was making. We are just making it very difficult for investors in India and Karnataka. Check out this interview with Mr.Brunner about his message for investors..

_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5d7Gmd6oDI

And we are trying to attract investors for the Bangalore Thermal Power plant, Industrial corridor from Bengaluru to Bidar, Shimoga airport, etc, etc..

We (Industry and GoK) have tried and failed. Railways says the track up till Yelahankha is too congested, and their interest is in long distance services.

But, all hope is not lost. You start the demonstration. Tell us where to show up and we all will.

-----------------------

Regards

Devesh R. Agarwal

Visit my aviation blog at http://aviation.deveshagarwal.com

Devesh,

Thank you  for the update on the efforts made by the GoK and the Industry for using the existing track to Devanahalli. I had not seen this information in any periodicals or newspapers and I do read a number of them daily. In fact, SB and I were trying to find who the contact people at SWR were so that we can approach them regarding this possibility. Now, we know you can tell us who to approach at SWR. Please tell us who you spoke to. The information I dug up today says:

Mr. Mahesh Mangal, Bangalore Divisional Railway Manager

Are these the right people..? 

Now, if SWR said they have congestion issues until Yelhanka, they have a point. But, not interested in Intra city travel is something that we cannot accept. Not with the price of crude at what it is, global warming, pollution, etc. SWR and it's tracks are national assets that we need to use more optimally. 

Now, please check out the map of the London Underground system at this link: http://www.afn.org/~alplatt/tube.html

Many of these routes use rail tracks that are also used to connect to other cities.We essentially need to do something smart like using better signalling, exchange of tracks at specific areas of congestion by two laning the tracks, build elevated tracks on available land, etc. We can also try to move platforms for inter city travel to Yeshwanthpur (for west bound trains), Yelhanka (to north bound trains), etc. With the suburban trains in place along with the metro, it may turn out that the time to get home from Yeshwantpur or Yelhanka or vice versa may be shorter then what it is now.  All these suggestions are from an enthusiastic non-railway / metro-engineering person and may need quite a few modifications by the respective folks at SWR / metro. But, since you say hope is not lost even after speaking to the SWR folks, I feel there is something that can be done here and that is the silver lining. 

Regarding organizing the demonstration, how I wish I could. But, I am based in London presently and doing ground work like seeking police permission, organizing security, etc cannot be done from here. But, I am more than willing to do all I can from here like publicizing the event through emails, art work for banners, etc if somebody can initiate this in Bengaluru. 

So if some one flies into HAl from Hubli or some other place, he has to then commute all the way to BIAL to catch his international flight (for ex). Instead he could fly to Chennai from HAL (more convinient). So only LCCs fly from HAL, but can very effectively take away business from BIA. Which business would allow that? How will it help Bangalore get a world class airport in the future? Reopening HAL is a short term solution of no benefit to B'lore in the long term, IMO.

photoyogi,

I read your post above . Please help me understand one thing, how is it that this "monopolism" has suddenly surfaced after the appearence of BIA on Bangalore's horizon when in fact we have been used to state monopolism for the past 60 odd years?  Please help me/us understand? I have raised this question before whenever the "M" word has come up. This is not to get into an unproductive argument but a real effort to understand the thought process behind that reasoning given the following facts that we under a failed inefficient monopoly where - 1) we get sewage mixed drinking water (http://www.hindu.com/2008/01/29/stories/2008012961220300.htm) 2) pathetic law enforcement 3) unreliable power 4) barely adequate public transport (to give credit this has improved though but not enough) 5) back breaking roads which can break even the best of military vehicles perhaps...the list can go on. So, how is it that infrastructure (BIA) that serves a miniscule amount of people in compared to the population using the above basic infrastructures listed now raises the Monopoly threat?

Ok, let's go by your point of view...fine, let's say we shouldn't have a monopolistic airport. If you feel that is really needed and that market forces should prevail then I urge you to be more realistic; perhaps this approach should be tried ->

1) lease out HAL to another consortium without any govt involvment whatsoever other than security & ATC. To give a level playing field, the current terminal in HAL should be demolished so that the new consortium inheriting HAL must build a good PTB from scratch.

If demolition is not possible then the current consortium of BIA must be compensated for at least the expenditure on the PTB after which a fresh bidding must occur for  running and developing BIA (in which case basically each of the 2 different consortia are getting a single runway along with a passenger building) the same time that the HAL bidding is going on. 

2) No govt participation in the consortium. So basically no govt agencies in the consortium of the 2 airports.

3) The land will be leased free to the consortia. But, in return, the govt should be given a royalty proportional to the business they generate.

4) Lift all restrictions on what aircraft can fly, which airline can fly and to which destinations (both international and national).

Then let's see how the market forces prevail. A stark reality is that Bangalore does not have the traffic for 2 airports and the distance factor should have been thought of when Devenahalli was chosen around 1997. We can take the discussion offline if you feel we can exchange more views on that. One of the factors that made the Tatas walk out was the traffic sharing (they did not find 2 airports viable) in addition to delays in getting clearence. Also, regarding the CA being in BIALs favour, the 150km rule was negotiated as per guidelines worked out by MoCA per the 1997 civil aviation act. Please read the second bullet in (civilaviation.nic.in/moca/Procdures%20guidelines.pdf) carefully, the decision to close HAL would have been clearly spelt out before even inviting the tenders. The 150km rule has of course changed since then with the latest aviation rule but still doesn't alter the justification for the number of airports.

Finally another option is available - dissolve BIAL and let BIA and HAL revert back to AAI control. That way folks who do not want a monopoly will have a duopoly and they will not have to pay UDF at either airports .

So, please let me know your thoughts.

Please see the document. The 150km radius applies for another Greenfield airport not an existing one.

See clause 7 of the same document. "In case, the existing airport is decided to be closed down, the unrecovered investments of AAI in the existing airport will have to be compensated by a suitable mechanism such as share in the concession fee to be given by the greenfield operator to the Govt. The Government shall, in general, promote competition in setting up a greenfield airport in addition to the existing one."

Just for your information, the original tender, nor the original offer of BIAL, called for closure of HAL airport. This came up only during "negotiations" after BIAL was selected.

-----------------------

Regards

Devesh R. Agarwal

Visit my aviation blog at http://aviation.deveshagarwal.com

This is a farce  to put it mildly.  I wonder why AAI's credibility is so high on matters pertaining to airport terminals considering what they have been dishing out so far.

To say that BIAL's capacity is lower than HAL's sounds (even to a layman like me) like an outright lie.  Isn't there some conflict of interest here to ask the incumbent to do an audit on a competitor?

So HAL's capacity is about 11million.  Of course it is, given that 10-11 million have been passing through it last year.  Does each peak passenger have 25m2?  I doubt it.  What about check-in counters, security, parking, taxis for arriving passengers, coach facilities.  No mention of that.

I went to the IGI Domestic terminal the other day to catch a flight back.  My apartment looks bigger!  But it handles more than 10 million domestic for sure.  I don't think it was bigger than BIAL.

This whole episode is disgusting to put it mildly.  We still seem to have a deep rooted suspicion of foreign companies for all our liberal talk and economic .  "They" the new East India Company, have come to loot us. 

"They" did not choose the location.  It was given to them by our humble farmers.  The aviation ministry was reviewing this project all along.  It means Praful Patel and team have failed to ensure that adequate capacity was built.  The bureaucrat who was monitoring this project should be sacked. 

I think it finally boils down to this.  I don't want to travel the extra 30 km/35 mins to reach the new airport.  Now I suddenly see all the hidden virtues of that run-down airport.  Please can I use it again?

Srivathsa

P.S. Devesh - nothing personal in this

That headline alone does it for me -- of all the bald faced lies! As of this moment, I will no longer believe a single word emanating from that organization.

--amaku

s_yajaman,

about your observation -  "It means Praful Patel and team have failed to ensure that adequate capacity was built.  The bureaucrat who was monitoring this project should be sacked."

Wel....you will have to sack the entire political establishment!!!! & please remember we don't have space in our jails (there is "congestion"..which is being resolved by expansion with Pulic-Private Partnership)!! I will not be surprised if HAL opens and I guarantee you that the blame game will go on for years and there will be this famous line ..."look BIAL are liars, because of them we had to open HAL, now they are not putting in money for expansion, now we have "congestion" in BIA..hence we will need a 3rd airport".  That is the reasoning in our country. Feel free to read a piece of reality in my posting in SSC -> http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=23007024&postcount=292. These are the very facts that I have highlighted in numerous postings both in SSC and praja. The article I have referred to in that posting is awesome reality with hard facts coming from an aviation professional. In fact I am all for temporarily closing BIAL if needed and reopening HAL in the proper hands just to prove a point and awaken the country on the scam going on. Whether it is BIA or HAL my goal is ->  1 efficent airport before opening another. HAL's chance came and went. Now aggressively demand results from whoever runs BIA. We also need to aggressively push towards modenization of antiquated airtraffic control rules, procedures & regulations.  

"Regarding your comment on the 150KM rule “was negotiated as per guidelines” is not some thing I will buy, the negotiation meant that it was made to suite the demand
that BIAL have control of the commercial airspace which is what am not happy
with."

About your observations above...fair enough..you have stated your view point that you are not comfortable and is not something you will buy..and I respect that. The only reason I brought up BWSSB etc. is due to the monpoly isssue brought up regarding this whole 150km issue. Whether you buy the "negotiated as per guidelines" or not the fact is the Delhi, Hyderabad & Bangalore contracts were having the same issue and were negotiated with the same guidlines in mind. I am not siding any party here but having the aviation knowledge (like others) that I have it pains me to see the state of airports in our country where people think that building our way out of congestion is the solution. Please let me clarify something, at this nascent stage of massive aviation platform development airports are not commodities for competition within a city with such low volumes of traffic and will be a huge waste of public resources without tackling the fundamentals first (fundamentals of air traffic managment, airport design & airport operations management). Where we need competition is basic infrastructure and that is why I mentioned it. But, I definitely agree that we should have competition in the form of Delhi vs Bangalore vs Chennai vs Hyderabad in terms of all airports should not be given to the same developer to develop AND Bangalore should compete to have the best airport among these cities. 

Let's do one thing, let the state take control of all the airports (both green field and whatever), no 150km or 10km rules whatever. Let AAI do the studies and do whatever they want; that way we need not waste time and resources inviting somebody from outside in the first place then doing the blame game as is going on now.

Otherwise, if you still feel that competition is needed in Banaglore between 2 airports..like I said before... then let's have BIA and HAL be handled by 2 separate private consortiums without any state involvment. The truth will come out then.

To me this whole saga stinks of a story I have heard quite often and experienced recently in Bangalore - You get into an auto with the promise of being taken to a destination at a fair price..in the middle ..either the auto mysteriously develops a problem and you have to get out...or the fare increases dramatically and the auto fellow threatens not to continue to the destination :-)". This has happened to a lot of my college friends in the 90s who used to get off at Majestic and take an auto to the airport. In may this happened to us (auto broke down and he leaves us in the middle half way to the destination demanding 80% of the fare). 

For all I know, BIAL, GMR, DIAL ..all these parties did negitiations in their best interest during which they gave detailed project plans to the Govt. The Govt. had every right to say no to their conditions. Moreover, the 150km rule was brought it by the govt to make the stage more attractive for investments to come in. I have articles about these in my archive and will furnish it you shortly.

Guys,

 I am happy to file the RTI applications with AAI, but I am apprehensible about answers  from AAI, given the past exeperience.

 Also I would suggest to setup a meeting with Mr. Brunner and see if diploamcy can help to get the details of investment made public. 

 I am right now in LA, once back in Maryland, I will start working on this.

 Syed 

Hi devesh & photoyogi,

This is in response to your postings. I don't deny that negotiations where done by BIAL in their favour keeping their interests in mind (for that matter GHIAL,DIAL..please allow me to expand and bring in these 2 to understand the issue as whole). In fact let's say, I had a free run and was bidding for a new airport in Bangalore in the absence of any policies or guidelines laid down by MoCA, I would ask for conditions more advantageous like for example - no new airport within 300kms or say in south india or say no major international airport in Karnataka and so on.

Well, the government could have easily said - we are not going to close HAL, our requirement is for a second alternative airport - so whoever wants to can bid for Devanahalli & construct - but the govt. did not. So my question is WHY BLAME the private developer of a greenfield airport? How about first questioning MoCa about where they came up with such policies and on what basis?

To understand this whole issue of where the 150km issue came up from we need to think at a National level and see the same 150km issue with DIAL,BIAL,GHIAL (unless they conspired and came up with this thing :-)). And devesh, the 150km radius does apply to existing airports as well as green field airports, I again would like to bring attention to those 2 bullets (if it helps please read the 2nd one before reading the 1st one):

• A greenfield airport may be permitted were and existing airport is unable to meet the projected requirements of traffic or a new focal point of traffic emerges with sufficient viability. It can be allowed both as a replacement for an existing airport or for simultaneous operation. This aspect will have to be clearly spelt out in the notice inviting tenders.
• No greenfield airport will normally be allowed within an aerial distance of 150kilometers of an existing airport in the same city or close vicinity. Where it is allowed as a second airport in the same city or close vicinity, the parameters

Note :- Yes, I know, the policies have changed now ..but please read on.

Now, my whole point of all this argument(please don't mistake me:-), I don't want to make this counterproductive or hammer my views...I am calling a spade a spade)..this whole issue of 150km radius, closing down or keeping existing ones etc. are based in flawed flip flopping policies at a National level to a large extent. My view point is whatever negotiations were done were done keeping the above policy/ guideline/ framework. If I were you guys I would start questioning the aviation policy first and why this was drawn up? Was it to play some kind of joke on the public and investors? Was it a joke to draw in reluctant investors and then change the rules by flipflopping? Such a policy would be disastrous. Now, 5 years later if the economy goes into a recession with a collapse in air travel are they going to change the policy again?

Even before Brunner & Co. in the case of Bangalore came into the picture the govt. decided on relegating the status of HAL airport to a NON Commercial airport in a major way (with some ambiguity). I had seen newscasts on TV back then, all I have is written proof in the form of online newspaper articles bookmarked in my archive ->

1) Dated as of January 5th 2008 :- same 150km policy stuff with Delhi
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Flight-path-balance/257866/

To let an airport in Greater Noida come up, the civil aviation policy would have to dispense with the restriction of two airports necessarily being at least 150 km apart.

Note:- Now, the interesting part here is that this is completely the opposite of the Bangalore situation..the existing airport Delhi having being privatized is a major one with 25million plus passengers per year and being expanded with ample space for a huge terminal and additional runways. The traffic forecasts at the new airport is anybodies guess. But devesh, existing airport or not, green field or not you see the ugly 150km stuff rearing it's head and definitely all of us can interpret the "cleverly worded" rule in different ways.

2) Dated as of April 10th 1999 :- After Tata's had walked out and before new bids
http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/ie/daily/19990410/ibu10059.html

To make the offer more attractive to the bidders, the State Government inconsultation with Union Civil Aviation Minister Ananth Kumar has relegatedthe present airport at HAL for mere VIP flights, flight of only lightaircraft with not more than 52 seats and convert the present space fortraining and as a service airport.

Note :- Now, an investor or a layman with avg aviation knowledge would be that HAL airport would close for commercial flights BUT would raise an eyebrow saying.. now what's the 52 seater deal... where would that aircraft fly to? So, if I were investing in a new airport what does it mean to me as far as commercial flights are concerned?

Hence point 3 below can be put in context

3) Dated as of April 19th 2000 :- In initial pre bidding meeting (after stuff was made "attractive" to bidders like stated before) http://www.hinduonnet.com/businessline/2000/04/19/stories/141960c6.htm

Mr. B.S. Patil, Principal Secretary to the State Government, said the applicants had sought clarifications on the status of the HAL airport, control of ATC and several technical details pertaining to the project.

Note:- I am not implying anything here, putting point 2 notes in context all I am saying is that there were of course doubts as to HAL's status. Now, why would experienced bidders be inquiring about status if HAL was already a huge efficient airport with massive traffic (20plus million passengers annualy or more??) and the govt had clearly spelled out that we would need a 2nd airport to complement HAL for handling spill over traffic? And, of course, I agree, interpretations could be many and there may have been other questions regarding the status and probably some bidders did not really care if remained open or not but just wanted to know out of curiousity :-) which I doubt.

Most importantly why has it become a BIAL & HAL thing AND the monopoly thing as opposed to questioning:

1. the strangle hold of DGCA & AAI
2. the horrible inefficiency and mismanagement of our exising airport infrastructure ??
3. qestioning the flipflopping aviation policies plus the bidding process and guidelines?
4. Last but not the least AAI's competency to do traffic/capacity analysis which has been exposed in it's most recent blatant lie?.

Bangalore: The new Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) has landed in a turbulent whirlwind with the Airports Authority of India (AAI).

The AAI has prepared a report that says that BIA’s capacity is less than what its promoters have stated, that the airport is already saturated, and that the promoters have violated a key clause in the concession agreement signed with the government. It has gone on to recommend that the old HAL airport be kept open till BIA builds an additional terminal.

    The AAI report, a copy of which is with The Times of India, follows a directive by the civil aviation minister to study the capacity issues at BIA. The AAI had designated a 4-member team to conduct the study in June.

    The report says that the Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) must take “immediate action...to create an additional capacity of 10 million passengers per annum to avoid further congestion and to handle the projected growth.” The report goes on to say, “In view of the saturation of the passenger terminal, import cargo, apron and runway, it is recommended that, in the meantime, the existing HAL Airport may be permitted to operate until the time of commissioning of proposed additional capacity at the new Bengaluru International Airport.”

    As per AAI’s calculations, the terminal capacity at BIA can only handle 9.78 million passengers annually as against the city’s passenger traffic of 10.12 million passengers in 2007-08. This means that since the day BIA opened on May 24, the airport has been under capacity. BIAL, on the contrary, has claimed that the airport’s capacity is 11.4 million passengers, which could even go up to handle 14 million passengers annually.

    As per recommendations of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), an airport which has to handle passenger traffic of 10 million passengers should have a terminal size of 1,50,000 sqm in area. BIA, according to the AAI report, has a terminal size of barely half that at 71,310 sqm.

    The report goes on to state: “BIAL revised its forecast to 11.4 million in November, 2006, for the year 2015 which deviates from the actual traffic drastically. In fact the traffic was growing as high as 43.9% when the revised forecast was made in November 2006.

    As per the concession agreement para 14.2 (page-61) BIAL was supposed to provide facilities as per IATA/ICAO standards and was to provide 27.3 sqm of space per peak hour passenger (PHP), whereas the actual area provided is 19.8 sqm per PHP, which is in deviation with the concession agreement.”

    As per norms followed by IATA, the capacity of an airport terminal is calculated on the ratio between the total area of an airport terminal to the number of peak hour passengers, which for any airport should be a minimum of 25 sqm/PHP.

    In fact the figure of 19.8 sqm/PHP at BIA is way below that of older airports in Chennai and Kolkata which have figures of 23.15 sqm/PHP and 24.15 sqm/PHP respectively. In the new Hyderabad airport terminal, it is estimated to be 35.21 sqm/PHP.

    Further,taking the terminal building in its totality,the report states that the “basement area of 18,665 sqm is not used for passenger facilitation, it is used for storage, services and utilities. Therefore, basement area should be excluded from the total terminal area which will reduce area/PHP to 14.6 sqm.”

What AAI report also said
BIA’s peak hour runway capacity is 32 movements as against current peak hour demand of 25. With anticipated annual growth rate of 25%, runway is likely to saturate during 2010-11. Immediate action should be taken for construction of second runway

    Existing number of parking bays are 42 as against peak hour demand of 41 bays (26 passenger aircraft, 5 freighter, 10 buffer for contingency). Addition of 30 more bays recommended

    There is imbalance between import and export cargo area which needs adjustment, that is import cargo is saturated whereas export cargo and domestic cargo have adequate capacity. It is therefore recommended that an additional import cargo capacity may be created immediately.

Source : The Times of India

-----------------------

Regards

Devesh R. Agarwal

Visit my aviation blog at http://aviation.deveshagarwal.com

Devesh,

Would you know what the HAL terminal size is by any chance? From what I hear from friends and family they say the new airport terminal is much bigger than the HAL terminal but are not able to give dimensions. So, considering that during peak hour in HAL from what I saw...many people standing both before and after security check (at least 50%) I am not sure what is going on. Can you please help us understand this?

I have not read the actual report but going by the reporting in TOI, it bears the unmistakable AAI stamp of authority, authenticity and precision – awe-inspiring precision. The capacity of BIAL is 9.78M, not 9.7M, not 9.8M. They have used god’s own caliper it would seem.  

The report also has some useful nuggets of information such as the benchmark data from Chennai and Kolkata. I do travel to Chennai periodically and have suffered through the peak hour rush there but armed with this new knowledge I am certain that my next trip there should be a piece of cake. After all, I will have 58.5616% more personal space there than at BIAL.  

I have to go now to figure out how to activate my “defense against deprivation” instincts for my next trip through BIAL – a couple of rounds of musical chairs might be a good start.

I had a chance to briefly interact with the leader of the survey team. This guy is a walking talking encyclopedia on the terminal norms as prescribed by IATA and others.

One of his explanations made a lot of sense. In the past, due to the traditional thinking by the babus in FinMin, they considered air travel to be a luxury, and hence would never sanction the use of public funds to build terminals bigger in size than the minimum 25m2 norms. Which explains the crowded terminals.

I think we can all agree, that we did not invite any private consortium, most especially a foreign one, to build a terminal marginally better than any AAI run one. It was to build a "global standard" airport.

In the story, the report points out for a 10 million passenger capacity airport, the terminal should be 150,000 sqm. I think the comparison to Delhi is to the upcoming T3 and not the existing domestic terminals.

If we compare the global trends, I have done some studies. Check this graph of terminal areas and this graph of crucial ratios of terminal areas, BIAL is way behind.

Changi T2 has a 22 million pax capacity with 350,000 sqm. I find it hard to believe BIAL's claim of 14 million with only 1/5th the terminal size. Changi T3 is 22 million with 380,000 sqm. Obviously the trend is towards larger terminals. BCIA T3 is 1 million sq mtr (14.08 times bigger than BIAL) for 50 million pax, which is also BIAL's stated ultimate capacity.

Sorry, but, I do not see the space in BIAL's master plan to put 14 terminals of the size of the current one, for them to reach their stated goal of 50 million.

Have we become so cynical of Government that we will believe the unsubstantiated word of BIAL over a studied and technical report of AAI.

I want BIAL to succeed, but most definitely not by scamming on the backs of Bangaloreans.

-----------------------

Regards

Devesh R. Agarwal

Visit my aviation blog at http://aviation.deveshagarwal.com

After being witness to the continuing BIAL movie, it is becoming clearer that it headed for the same fate as C-DOT in 80's.

 For benefit of those who do not know C-DOT and its era, let me give you some snippets.

During Indira Gandhi's days (few years before her assasination), a humble Indian Sam Pitroda who had made his name in Telecom in USA, approached GOI and trying to persuade for telecom expansion in India praticularly semi-urban and Rural areas. At that ITI and Telecom department was very eager to start the Mobile technology in DElHI. Sam Pitroda tried to convince the bureacrats instaed of providing mobile telephoen service to few hundred rich guys in Delhi, one can spend that money to provide telephone services in 1000 villages and small cities. Somehow IG could not be convinced. Sam left empty handed to US.

He returned to India during the days of Rajiv Gandhi and found the willingness and encouragement. That lead to establishment of C-DOT (Center for development ofTelematics). Its started out developing electronic exchanges for rural and semi urban areas. It's philosophy was based on modular products. It achieved remarkable success in developing exchanges upto 32000 lines. It transferred the technology to private manufacturers. That changed the whole telecom scenario specially in rural areas. Earlier they were at mercy of state Owned ITI and its outdated technology and products. C-DOT had a problem in developing 60000 line exchanges. Its missed the schedules and got delayed by 2 years. It did succeed in finally launching the 60000 line exchange. It was first installed in ULSOOR exchange and it was reported to be still running fine and great. It was a remarkable story of runaway success in indigenously developing products that suite and benefit the Indian condition. During the 32k to 60k innings there were many incidents that needs closer look. This is the crux of my comment. It resembles the saga of BIAL.

 When C-DOT was a runaway success, ITI, its bureacrats and its suppliers became afraid that it might lose its place in Telecom. Politicians played their role very well. ITI ganged up with Alcatel - France, to produce electronic exchanges. Its first plant was established in Mankapur, U. P. (I had the prevelige to visit this ITI). Alcatel executed its plan very well. First it helped setup the ITI in Mankapur and trained its official free of cost. It gave the technology and equipment free of cost. It also started bad mouthing C-DOT. It started a campaign with discrediting Sam Pitroda and C-DOTs capability. They used to tell ITI that it has 100s of Sam Pitrodas. This suited ITI as well. ITI bureacrats in company with the Alcatel left no stone unturned to ensure that C-DOT was pushed to a failed state enterprise. Unfortunately political scenario expedited the C-DOTs future. Sam did not enjoy the same influence as before in government. It is said that Sam had to resign from C-DOT and return to USA for financial reasons. Later Alcatel, in liberalised economy, set up thier own manufacturing plant in Haryana. Now no body talks about ITI and C-DOT.  In all this interesting happennings politicians, ITI bureacrats and the brokers made their killing at the cost of rendering both ITI and C-DOT to be defunct public enterprises.

Coming back to BIAL and its similarity with C-DOT, it should be obivous that BIAL is C-DOT of today in PPP avatar, AAI playing the role of ITI and our Pro-HAL lobby perfecting the art of ALCATEL. It has picked up where the ALCATEL left ITI.

The way the plan is laid out, In one sceanrio, Bad mouth/discredit the BIAL to the possible extent, Put the HAL airport opening threat looming on BIAL all the time. Media houses like TOI and our Pro-HAL campaigners would dance to the tunes of AAI and would play the role of perfect spoilsport. Somehow the HAL airport would be opened. Expansions and 2nd Phase would remain just the plans. Things would be made difficult for Brunner and company. At some point they would call it a day. AAI would step into operating the airport. It would be great oppurtunity for polticians, their industrial/Business friends to loot what ever they can. AAI babus would be happy to be the party in loot. What can we say.

 The 2nd scenario is, first installment of bribe and curruption is all finished and eaten. Nothing left. It seems the money that was paid is not to the satisfaction of AAI Babus, MoCA officials and Political brokers. Therefore make the capacity report negative aginst BIAL. Basically hanging the negative report sword on BIAL. Threat BIAL with HAL opening slogan again and again. Forcing brunner and Company to start the expansion and this time ensure that Brunner pays the right amount otherwise one more capacity report. Either way Brunner would be forced to play the game per AAI wishes.

 Are we ready for another C-DOT innings and finish?

Amaku

The comparisons to other airport terminals globally, lead me to believe the AAI survey. If BIAL wants to present its side of its case, with figures it will lead to an accurate comparison.

I believe figures, and there is nothing concrete from BIAL.

Till today, BIAL has resisted all efforts to present its books of accounts. Siemens may have a good reputation globally, but BIAL is not Siemens, and it is BIAL which is in court fighting a case of unfair tendering and non-transparent procurement. 

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Regards

Devesh R. Agarwal

Visit my aviation blog at http://aviation.deveshagarwal.com