HAL airport must stay: High Court

This is so sad. If we are flip-flopping like this then future private investors will think hard (real hard) before investing here.

This solution is something like advising a heart patient to limit daily activities versus agressively tackling the clogged arteries. There was no active initiative to build good rail and road infrastructure right from 2003/2004 when the airport development began. Given that the new BIAL is the future direction steps should be taken to come up with a solution for high speed rail and dedicated busways to the new airport. What is the use of keeping 2 airports open when we have crumbling infrastructure that prevents us from getting to either of them efficiently? I think we should take a page or two from China & Dubai for their world class infrastructure growing by leaps and bounds. A page should also be taken from the construction of HongKong international airport in the 90s where they built the airport, road&rail connectivity from the city center and dedicated remote checkin at the city center rail station at the same time.

And, what happens here in Bangalore? We get an international airport with facilities that should have been there more than 5 years back and rest of the facilities get shifted to other phases leaving bangalore in a catch up mode from day 1.

From the BIAL website there doesn't appear to be an integrated public transport terminal with direct easy access (without passengers crossing other traffic on the ground) to the passenger terminal(s) which is a basic  functional feature expected of an airport designed in the 90s and even prior to that.

One of petitioner is R.K Mishra who won the Lead India award. He is talking of taking this case Hon'ble SC  and file a special leave pittion. This is not the thing one can expect from so called "Leader". If he is true leader and concerned about fellow citizens he can mediate b/w GOI and BIAL, rather filing petitions and sending wrong singal for PPP model.

prasad

This is total injustice to BIAL. They have invested huge amount in BIAL and has given a next generation Airport. What if that Airport is under utilized? BIAL is receiving the beating because of the connectivity issue which Government should have taken care from the day the project was started. Should the connectivity using RAI

People like Capt. Gopinath who run short haul flights pushed this for their own interest.  

If HAL is to stay, it needs to stay only for very short haul flights like Chennai and within Karnataka flights since airports are coming up all over Karnataka.

I just went thru this article and I dont understand how renegotiating the no-other-airport clause is going to make travel to the new airport better.

I have been watching the anand nagar underpass and the BDA flyover work progress for the past month and it has come to a standstill. I saw some activity only today after more than a month. We need to sue inaction by authorities who build the approach to the airport not renegotiate some clause to make access better. Definitely wrong tree.

Well well if the Gov or the petitioners and the judges are playing the connectivity and travel time cards to keep HAL open its a wrong signal.

Any airport in any big city even in the US takes atleast 50 mins for people living abt 30 miles away from the ariport. - Even in well connected cities like NY or Atl. I have driven to these airports - I still do and it takes atleast an hour and 20 mins for me to reach Atl airport which is abt 35 miles away with a freeway that has 7- 8 lanes on each side.

I do not see any reason to keep HAL open except for all the vvips like our politicians to use them. Lets all grow up and honour some good work that has been happening in Bangalore to invite more good to the city and the state.

At a discussion session at the Bangalore International Centre, last week, while Mr Baligar, IAS, Principal Sec (Infrastructure), GoK, presented the governments case against the retention of the HAL airport, 3 other apeakers, viz - Mr R Ravichander (formerly member BATF), Mr Vinod Vyasulu (an expert on public finance) presented their arguments for the retention of HAL airport operations. The text of Mr Ravichander's presentation is reproduced below:

First a confession - till Nov 2007, I was for honouring the sanctity of the contract and closing HAL. I have since revised my view and I shall present my case for being a turncoat shortly.

A disclaimer - asking for HAL airport to remain open does not mean one is anti BIAL. BIAL is the future and is needed for the city. But HAL can co exist with BIAL being compensated.

The reasons why HAL should remain open (and none of them is about connectivity at all) :

Future proofing is in the public interest. The capacity of BIAL is 12 mn passengers. We are currently at 10.5 mn passengers annually and we will reach current capacity by middle of 2009. With one runway the capacity can go to 14-15 mn passengers, a number that will be reached by mid 2011. The new runway (if it does come up) will not be before 2014 (admitted by BIAL and Govt). So expect shortage in capacity between 2011-14. I am not even referring to cargo which is reasonably messed up in the short term for the next year at BIAL

One argument is that Hyd closed Begumpet so what is the big fuss? Hyd has a current demand of 6.5 mn passengers and an airport with a capacity of 12 mn passengers. Hyd and Blr situation not comparable.

For a rapidly growing developing economy like India, conserving working infra assets makes sense (I do sound like Prakash Karat here). Closing down a working asset especially when it is known that we are going to run into a capacity constraint seems a silly thing to do. And spending Rs 4000 crores of public money on a high speed rail link from KSCA for a Rs. 2220 crores airport project is questionable when alternatives exist. And this spending for the fat cats is not going to go down well with aam aadmi.

A private sector monopoly in the infra sector is not in the public interest particularly in the absence of a strong regulator. Someday we will chat about their revenue models. I think a duopoly will keep both parties honest in the interest of citizens.

Closing HAL will be a self goal. Expect TN to announce a Hosur airport in due course post final closure. And expect that to join Hognekkal as an issue sometime down the line.

2 airports will strengthen State competitiveness, investments, job creation, et all.

The contract. It is not cast in stone. The Global tender did not have HAL closure as a promise. It was in 2004 just before the concession agreement was signed that BIAL insisted on it. And the Ministry of Civil Aviation agreed.

I realize a suggestion such as HAL to be open has consequences. Let me deal with them:

It is not my case that HAL be kept open and BIAL can take a walk. BIAL is in the driver’s seat with the contract. I am for users of HAL airport compensating BIAL on terms to be decided - the general public should not be made to pay for it. I think market can decide the demand and adjust supply accordingly - for instance the Mumbai-HAL fare can be 5500 and the Mumbai - BIAL fare can be 4200 and the difference is given to BIAL. This can be decided by auctioning slots too. BIAL could be made a shareholder in a HAL airport SPV.

A point that is made is that PPP will suffer if we go back on the contract. I don’t think so. Business will come where money is to be made and India is gold rush territory. It will suffer if there is arbitrariness in the decision to keep HAL open. If there is compensation to BIAL then rule of law applies. For eg. in a recent Peru airport, 70 odd conditions were renegotiated. The PPP models are imperfect and they are being honed with each experience.

BIAL claims they will make huge losses and folks have bid at the airport expecting a monopoly. A public hearing on finances should help get a sense of the ‘loss’. In their original projections they expected less than 7 mn passengers this year. If it is proven BIAL is financially devastated then HAL should not be open.

Finally, I repeat it is not about connectivity and travel time to BIAL which will be a hassle in the short term. It’s about a few other issues I have tabled. You may or may not agree. I rest my case.

Ravichander

PS: You may have noticed that I have not expressed my views on the matter. My concern is more for the aam aadmi - the bus traveller :))), even if he is beginning to switch to the VOLVO now.

Muralidhar Rao

Again, I feel that we dont require HAL Airport, ok..lets assume that domestic flights operate from HAL airport even after opening of BIAL, then, we will definitely be under -utilising the facilities of BIAL.How many international flights take off in a day?? do we require a new airport just to operate just 20-25 flights per day??...thats the question we need to ask?? There are very few intl flights, and most of the flights from HAL are doemstic.So, if we want to continue with HAL airport, then we all have to accept the fact that situation will not change in HAL even after the opening of New Airport...so is the objective acheived?

Keeping HAL open will beat the purpose of building a new airport. First of all even if we are saturated in an years time at BIAL - it is enough of warning that we have to expand. That is the very reason we have a new Airport. Instead of retaining HAL we have to renegotiate the UDF with BIAL and help the airport consortium recover that money in many other creative ways.

BIAL will have to start expanding immediately after June '08 to beat any further issues with serving more passengers. Lobbying is the norm of Democracy. But making it Demo crazy is foolish.. Even in 2003 it would take about 1.5 hrs for me to reach HAL airport especially during peak hours.. that says it all it has always been that long - media hype and some lobbying has highlighted this issue to a very great extent.

Guys we will all appreciate the new airport. Lets make it better and bigger and easier for the may 11th launch and hope the expansion phase starts immediately too.

 I am hoping that Mr Brunner has noted all the criticism on the Airport design and will be out with a mega plan to change these shortcomings...

Let me introduce myself, Am Paanwallaa and represent the aam janta with a thinking cap. This post of having a contrarians view seems to jaundiced with an ulterior motive to hurt people like me. Allow me to pose a few questions that may throw light.
I have quoted your text just to make it easier.

At a discussion session at the Bangalore International Centre, last week, while Mr Baligar, IAS, Principal Sec (Infrastructure), GoK, presented the governments case against the retention of the HAL airport, 3 other apeakers, viz - Mr R Ravichander (formerly member BATF), Mr Vinod Vyasulu (an expert on public finance) presented their arguments for the retention of HAL airport operations. The text of Mr Ravichander's presentation is reproduced below:

Mr R Ravichander : First a confession - till Nov 2007, I was for honouring the sanctity of the contract and closing HAL. I have since revised my view and I shall present my case for being a turncoat shortly.

Paanwalla: Why Nov 2007 can some one enlighten me as to why such a drastic reversal of faith.

Mr R Ravichander : A disclaimer - asking for HAL airport to remain open does not mean one is anti BIAL. BIAL is the future and is needed for the city. But HAL can co exist with BIAL being compensated.

Paanwalla: At what cost? At the cost oh having both the airports being unfeasible to operate there by resulting in poor maintainance etc etc and then saying I told you so? (tut tut tut)

Mr R Ravichander : The reasons why HAL should remain open (and none of them is about connectivity at all) :

Future proofing is in the public interest. The capacity of BIAL is 12 mn passengers. We are currently at 10.5 mn passengers annually and we will reach current capacity by middle of 2009.

Paanwalla: stop stop stop……… where did you get this number of 10.5 mn ? Please see this report from AAI & HAL that says in 2006 the capacity that HAL was doing was 6 mn Are you suggesting that in a matter of 2 years the growth has been an additional 4mn after HAL saturated and said no more new flights into and out of Bangalore? Please read http://www.hinduonnet.com/2006/04/25/stories/2006042520460100.htm

So if am right, you seem to have gotten the numbers wrong, this whole argument according to you brings us comparable to the Hyderabad situation, so shut HAL Down!

Ok wait I forgot to mention Bangalore HAL airport was designed to handle 3.6mn and possibly now handing about 7-8mn passengers even that’s 222% why don’t you apply the same logic to BIAL.

Mr R Ravichander : With one runway the capacity can go to 14-15 mn passengers, a number that will be reached by mid 2011. The new runway (if it does come up) will not be before 2014 (admitted by BIAL and Govt). So expect shortage in capacity between 2011-14. I am not even referring to cargo which is reasonably messed up in the short term for the next year at BIAL

Paanwalla: This info is a misrepresentation and skewed logic. Please read this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

Mr R Ravichander : One argument is that Hyd closed Begumpet so what is the big fuss? Hyd has a current demand of 6.5 mn passengers and an airport with a capacity of 12 mn passengers. Hyd and Blr situation not comparable.

Paanwalla: Please read my above argument.

Mr R Ravichander : For a rapidly growing developing economy like India, conserving working infra assets makes sense (I do sound like Prakash Karat here). Closing down a working asset especially when it is known that we are going to run into a capacity constraint seems a silly thing to do. And spending Rs 4000 crores of public money on a high speed rail link from KSCA for a Rs. 2220 crores airport project is questionable when alternatives exist. And this spending for the fat cats is not going to go down well with aam aadmi.
Paanwalla: Why the heck are you talking of aam aadmi now?? Is this the next tactic to get the Metro outta steam?

Mr R Ravichander : A private sector monopoly in the infra sector is not in the public interest particularly in the absence of a strong regulator. Someday we will chat about their revenue models. I think a duopoly will keep both parties honest in the interest of citizens.
Paanwalla: America is a country that has built monopolies and will squash them too we have to learn to take the best of these ideas and move ahead not keep saying we are on the right track and keep sitting there cos a train of progress will run us over soon enough.

Mr R Ravichander :Closing HAL will be a self goal. Expect TN to announce a Hosur airport in due course post final closure. And expect that to join Hognekkal as an issue sometime down the line.
Paanwalla: This is a run in the Jungle or in other words a googly and proves you are running outta ammo so doesn’t that mean BIAL will have to perform better?

The rest of the posting I don’t care 2 hoots and don’t think its worth my time.

Paanwalla

I have always wondered, who creates these figures (airport capacity). Isn't it strange:

Hyderabad has 125,000 sq ft space and Bangalore 70,000 sqft, Hyd has 60 check in counters , BIAL 53 - yet both can handle 12 million pax per year.

Either HYD has some bad space management, or no one is really confirming the Capacity.

 My earlier assumption was that HYD had airline operating offices inside the terminal building while BIAL had it in a seperate building - but turns out both have it inside.

 I wonder what this is an interpretation off?

I am new on to praja and the BIAL topic intrests me.

I will only put down some points which so far have not been raised in the forum..and I am a pro BIAL advocate.

a)Argument of Short Haul flights etc from HAL:

Has anyone considered the costs for airlines to maintain two establishments ( maintainence) at 2 airports in bangalore and that too at this small ( by world standards) air traffic.What we are doing is esentially building in inefficencies if Hal is kept open.

b)Has anyone thought of the absolute environmental disaster that is HAL ..noise pollution in very residential neighbourhoods being just one of them.

IF Hal is kept open ,in time it will need to expand and the one lung space ( the army land around HAL ) will come into threat.

c) An argument that BIAl in fact should be compensated if HAL is kept open.

By whom? it will finally boil down to the exchequer..and further propogating inefficencies .

d)In my opinion, the day HAL is allowed to be kept open , that also becomes the day when all plans/actvity on connectivity to BIAL goes into a deep freeze.If one knows government and government agencies, the only way to get them to work is by keeping the fire hot.

e)There was some question on the forum on who is really behind this keep HAl open move.

Well there happens to be an organisation called city connect ..fundamentally corporate ,purpoted to collborate with government on city's connectiveity ills...In true bangalore style , they seem to have taken a much larger role on themselves with this BIAL PIL.

But this "city connect" does threaten to be an elitist , for corporate, extra constitutional platform , much like the BATF of old,.which in my view failed not because of lack of vison and skills, but the extreme narrow intrests that it pushed.

On this whole BIAL affiar, what saddens me is that while there is so much opinion out there that HAL should be closed ..all these have been in the background , while it the few who want for their own convienience to keep HAL open, who have moved courts and fashioned public opinion.

Some of us should try to strengthen BIALs hand.

Instead of taking sides I believe we deserve better facilities than HAL gives us today. I dont believe profit driven enterprises will put people before profit when there is a conflict between the two at the same time do not believe the generation of people running the public services today have the capacity to build world class systems. Look at road traffic engineering and traffic management for example. We arent even where the developed nations were 50 years ago.

The need for a regulator and constant checking and enforcement of standards in the new airport is absolutely necessary as was shown to our benefit when the ATC wasnt done and the airport was being opened. I believe a regulator is a must to keep people honest. That said there has to be a balance between keeping a pig sty open and ensuring we get the best of what we choose to get built.

There is a very lively discussion going on at Praja. Great to see that.

However, many comments, seem to be born of out a lack of complete facts, and "buy-in" of the terrific media campaign by BIAL.

While my views here are strictly personal, I head the Infrastructure committe for the Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce. I have been monitoring the Bangalore Aviation scene since 1993.

It was my report compiled after extensive studies in 2004, and presented to Shri Praful Patel in early 2005, that paved the way for the terminal expansion, and other facilities expansion at HAL airport. I have a special affection for Bangalore, not for HAL or AAI.

Since 2001, when BIAL was just announced, I have been harping about connectivity and I used the term "no airport is an island". Yet precisely this is what has happened.

All of us, would like to conveniently blame the Government for not doing its job and absolve BIAL. Yet, we Bangaloreans seem to have forgotten that Govt. of Karnataka is an integral PART OF BIAL. Two IAS officers serve on the Board of Directors of BIAL.

I can tell you that both R.K. Misra and the Bangalore City Connect Foundation (which comprises of ALL major industrial bodies in Bangalore, along with Janaagraha), welcome the new airport, but not exclusively.

We know that air traffic growth has surpassed the capacity of BIAL, and at no point in the PIL, have either RK or BCCF asked the Hon. Court to stop BIAL. The PIL was to keep HAL open in ADDITION to BIA.

Just for your information, R.K. Misra and all in industry including some of the senior industry leaders mentioned in various posts in this thread, attempted to sit down with BIAL, GoK, GoI, leaders and explain them the situation, and to mediate a solution. BIAL would just not hear it.

BIAL even went so far as to say in court, that they will not let the airport open if the court ruled against it. I have never seen such a threatening attitude by any company.

BIAL is following the rule of Cortez, when he first invaded the Americas. He burnt his ships so that his sailors and soldiers had no way to go back. BIAL realises that if HAL airport is allowed to continue, its capacity constraint will come out in the open, and Bangaloreans will have a way to go back; unless it closes HAL airport for good.

It is important to know all the facts, and most of the media just follows BIAL blindly. If you would like both sides of the story, visit my blog.

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Regards

Devesh R. Agarwal

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

Check out the story on my blog http://deveshagarwal.blog...

Feedback Business Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd., did a survey of about 1,150 passengers at HAL Bangalore airport. Without belittling electronic, web, or phone surveys, this was a face-to-face survey of actual passengers involving considerable effort, and thus, is the most honest and un-biased opinion, anyone can hope to get.

The survey was conducted between 26/Feb and 1/Mar 2008, from 6AM to 10PM, across a wide cross section of passengers -- frequent vs. occasional flyers, Bangalore/Karnataka residents vs. non residents, business vs. leisure travellers, across gender, across age groups (19 - 55+ years), arriving and departing passengers.

The results :

• 70.7% of those surveyed said they will be adversely or significantly adversely impacted by closure of HAL airport
  
• 81.3% agreed with the statement "I feel that the connectivity to the new BIAL airport at Devanahalli is not yet in place and HAL airport needs to be kept open"
• 71.4% said that all parties should sit down and work out a mutually beneficial arrangement
• Only 19.4% agreed with the statement "I think the government should close HAL airport as set out in the agreement, irrespective of any public inconvenience in the short term"
• 77.8% felt that "Longer travel time to the new BIAL airport at Devanahalli will adversely affect the productivity of businesses in Bangalore"
• 72.5% said "Bangalore's economy is growing rapidly and it is desirable to keep existing infrastructure like HAL airport open to handle rising demand".

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Regards

Devesh R. Agarwal

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

Dear Devesh,

We are honoured to have you comment on praja.in.  I will attempt to respond to you.  My views may not be representative of that of the other members.  Ours is a democratic site where people's varied opinions are always welcome.  Some questions and comments

a. Why do we have different standards for HAL Airport and BIAL Airport?  Connectivity to HAL Airport is good or even acceptable? Since when? Please help me understand.  It took me 1 hr and 20 mins to reach home for a flight landing at 8:15 p.m. and for a distance of 16 km.  I have at times waited 30 mins in the taxi queue.  There is no coach facility that starts inside the airport. 

b. The timing of all this is what rankles many of us here.  It was not as if BIAL's location was a state secret for the last 3 years.  Why open a can of worms now?  How many businesses operate with public interest in mind?  Why should BIAL negotiate?  What is in it for them? 

c. I made a point in another response on BIAL's windfall in terms of traffic growth.  You might want to read that. 

d. Resistance to change is nothing new, not in Bangalore, not in India and not in the world.  BMRCL's progress or the lack of it is another example.  You might want to spend your energies speeding that up.  It will really help a lot of people.

e.There is another monstrous monopoly in Bangalore called BMTC.  R.K. Misra might want to have a go at it.  Improving public transport can solve a number of problems at the same time including reducing the time it takes to get to the new airport. 

f. Longer travel times within the city probably(?) affect businesses more than travel time to the airport.  The former seems to have been taken for granted.  Also, unless I operate one of the shops in the airport, I would be hard pressed to imagine what business needs daily trips to the airport?  I used to be a Platinum card holder for Jet and I did only 2 flights a week.  Some of us (and you might know who I mean) also need to stop pretending that travel from E-City to HAL is instantaneous.

g. If HAL Airport can handle 10.5 million (3 or 3.5 times it's rated capacity), why are we worried that BIAL will have 10% more than its rated capacity in year 1?  Why the different standards again?

h. My concern is that because of this sort of noise and for the sake of 30000 people who use the airport every day, the government is planning to spend $1B on a high speed railway and Rs.800 crores on an expressway that is hard to reach in the first place.  For probably 20% of that money we could debottleneck the whole ORR.  The rest could have been spent on better things like schools and hospitals for the general public.

I do not mean any offence and certainly appreciate a lively discussion.

Regards,

Srivathsa

I  have no special love for HAL. In fact, the recently retired as Managing Director, considered me a pain in the a**, for constantly bugging him and pubically calling for expansion of the HAL airport.

Airports are not magical things. Runways need a minimum 2~3 years to make. The capacity constraint at BIA is not the terminal, right now, but the runway. HAL has shown us that we Bangaloreans are an accomodation people, and terminal capacity can be stretched.

Unfortunately, runway capacity is determined by the cold hard rules of international air safety. 

My love and interest is for Bangalore, as a whole. We are the premiere city in India. We should be ahead of the demand curve not playing catch-up.

Connecting the overall picture is important. The new airports bill being tabled in Parliament, specially removes the exclusive clause, for all new airports. The GOI has learnt its mistake.

The court has given Government and BIAL the political cover to re-negotiate. Here is an opportunity for us to obtain a better contract for ourselves.

Check out my story http://deveshagarwal.blogspot.com/2008/04/bial-contract-re-negotiation-time-for.html 

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Regards

Devesh R. Agarwal

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

Finally you and me are in agreement, at least on one point. Choice.

Our efforts are to keep both airports open, and then have a high powered committee including AAI, BIAL, HAL, Airlines, Industry Bodies, sit down and work out the details.

With regards to scaling up. By using Mumbai airport data, I have written an article on the real capacity of BIA. http://deveshagarwal.blog...

Please do visit and check it out.

Even with two runways, BIA will have a capacity of 30 million passengers, and even assuming BIAL's uber-conservative growth of 10% per year, this figure will be reached by 2016.

Check this picture. http://picasaweb.google.c...

Even with HAL airport, we will need to consider another airport, bigger than BIAL, now!!!

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

Regards

Devesh R. Agarwal

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

Hello Srivathsa

Thanks for the warm welcome, and the very thought provoking questions. I have fallen in love with the Praja, and the Praja that populates it. Very intellectually stimulating. Makes me pause and think.

I am very open natured, and do not take offense. If anything, I find, many people find me offensive and blunt to the point of undiplomatic arrogance.

I will try and answer your queries point by point, but at the outset, let me tell you. I am considered in politics a Libertarian. i.e. extremely small government. I am in full favour of privatisation, but dead against monopolies. I believe that I know how to earn and spend my money better than any bureaucrat, no matter how intelligent and capable they are.

I am in agreement with you on many many points. Most especially the grandiose expenditure plans of various Government agencies. More of our precious money is going to be spent on ancillaries to the airport, than on the airport itself. Somehow, Government, most especially in India, seems to believe that their progress is measured on how much they spend, not what solutions they actually achieve.

The government is already shifting a major DRDO test facility in Kolar at the request of BIAL. In my humble opinion, BIAL should be made to pay for the cost of the shift. I fear a similar fate awaits Yelahanka air base, and there the investment is in thousands of crores. The media is aware of it, yet, there is not a peep in the press.

Talking of the press, if you remember, on 25/Mar, many papers in Bangalore, carried an "interview" by Mr. Albert Brunner where he debunked "detractors" of BIAL. That "interview" was actually written completely by Mr. Brunner. Times of India even carried a challenge for readers to respond.

I wrote a response, which is detailed in my blog article http://deveshagarwal.blogspot.com/2008/03/debunking-mr-brunners-debunks.html. Till today, it has not been carried.

HAL airport has been taken for granted by all, including us, as well as the Government. We have not forced Government to put a bus service in place, and this has delivered many a passenger in to the hands of the taxi mafia.

In re-negotiating, BIAL gets a multitude of benefits. They will loose an insignificant portion of their traffic, what they will loose is low profit ATR flights, what they gain is time slots for larger and more profitable jets, they get more time to stabilise their operations, they get access to a second airport and opportunity to build bridges, infrastructure is expensive, lets not forget HAL airport is worth over Rs. 1000~1500 crores today, and BIAL gets that one elusive thing all corporations strive for -- good PR and great coroporate governance.

Every industry body has a gamut of great people, and all of us focus on various issues. The Bangalore City Connect foundation is a gathering of all industry bodies, and the BTTI is just the first initiative. BMRCL is also on the radar screen, and push is being made there also.

If I can help it, I would even privatise the traffic police, and give the whole thing out on contract. If traffic law enforcement is tightened, the fines alone would pay for the entire Bangalore Traffic Police force, and then still have money left over to give to the city. Having said that, I have travelled by the Vajra and Airavat services and they are good. If you see the Wharton article that has been quoted here on Praja, I have said, that the first step to improvement of airports in India, is the privatisation of AAI. I know the people at AAI, they are good and capable. After BSNL was privatised, it has come out a leaner, meaner, and stronger organisation. This will happen at AAI also.

It distresses me that the whole commute thing has become a North Bangalore vs. South Bangalore issue. It is not. I lived for over 15 years in Dallas. To reach DFW airport, many parts of the metroplex required a 1 ~ 1.5 hour drive. It also explains why Dallas Love Field airport was re-activated and the Wright amendment repealed. Since it was right in the middle of town. Its a small airport, no fancy facilities, but very easy to get in to and out of, and right in the middle of town. Ideal for the business traveller on a 1 hour flight.

When I refer to capacity, I refer to runway capacity. We are accomodating people in Bangalore, and will tolerate quite a bit, so terminal capacity can be flexed. However runway capacity is finite. I made a detailed presentation at the Centre for Public Policy at IIM. Please see my article http://deveshagarwal.blogspot.com/2008/03/real-capacity-of-bengaluru.html. I have used Mumbai, India's premier and most efficient airport (in terms of air traffic control and runway utilisation). The maximum capacity of BIA per runway is 15 million, which we will reach in 18~24 months. For too long, Bangalore economic growth has been stiffled by GOI not investing in HAL expansion. Why give up existing infrastructure and perpetuate the stiffling.

Another group of people we have completely overlooked are the workers at the airport. The rule of thumb is 1000 employees for every 1 million passengers. That implies 14,000 employees. For 14 million passengers, it translates to 39000 passengers daily, to and fro, and 28,000 employees to and fro. More than 2/3rds. What provisions are we making for them ? What about their families ? What is the infrastructure in terms of schools, provision shops, markets, playgrounds, housing, around BIAL. The closest is Yelahanka, 18 km away. Check my article http://deveshagarwal.blogspot.com/2008/04/bengaluru-international-airport-cannot.html

Out of sight of the general population is cargo. Most Praja members are unaware, but 50% of Bangalore's GDP is sent by air cargo. BIAL has completely overlooked cargo. There is no cargo facilities.

I quote from my article http://deveshagarwal.blogspot.com/2008/04/perils-of-pioneering-bangalores-loss-of.html

Sorry to sign off abruptly, but I need to attend to my family now.

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

Regards

Devesh R. Agarwal

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

If Yelahanka air base is a problem in BIAL expansion - why did we not think about this before locating the airport?? this invokes another instance of poor poor planning and lack of vision. If BIA's Capacity is the problem then we possibly have problems with the whole plan.

I think in the first place we should have planned for an airport with a vision to handle 100 mi pax and atleast expandable to 4 parallel runways.. did they expect Bangalore to be what it was in the early 90s??

There is always a solution to workaround this Iam sure but at what and whos cost is the question. It would be nice if BIA and or all the stakeholders make any moves here after with consultations from every corner. Hope our new airport will not be a mockery.