Is the new Bangalore Airport project Goldplated ? - Down South

Is the new Bangalore Airport project Goldplated ?

Venkatesha Babu - Saturday, June 21, 2008 8:08 AM

Nearly a month after it was thrown open to traffic, the new Bengaluru International Aiport Ltd (BIAL) seems to be still struck in the midst of controversy. The new Karnataka government has stated that it will ask the Centre to keep the old HAL airport in the city open for short haul flights. Number of airlines have cut back on short haul flights to places like Chennai and Hyderabad from Bangalore. This is because it takes approximately the same amount of time to travel to the new airport, board your aircraft and descend in Chennai, as it would to just hire a cab and go on road to that city. 

What is even more interesting is the demand made by serial entreprenur and member of parliment Rajeev Chandrasekhar to make the finances and costing of the BIAL airport public. The project was initially slated to cost Rs 1334 crore but ended up at Rs 2470 crore. BIAL blames the cost escalation on the delay in executing the project, which happened due to a number of reasons, including it is fair to say, some which were out of its control. But BIAL has been chary of giving a detailed breakup of how it arrived at the figure of Rs 2470 crore.

This is crucial because several of the charges and levies which are borne by passengers and airlines (which in turn would anyway pass it onto the flier) is tied into the project cost. That is the reason why some are apprehensive that the project may have been goldplated. Wherever returns are tied in to the amount of investment and it is a monopoly player, their is very little incentive to squeeze costs. BIAL might have fallen victim to the same.

However since government owns 26% stake (13% is owned by KSIIDC a Karnataka government body which provided the 4050 acres of land on which the airport sits and 13% by Airports Authority of India owned by the Central government), they should force BIAL management to give a detailed breakup of on what this Rs 2470 crore was spent on. Also the government should compare the costs to what the GMR led consortium has done at the Hyderabad International Airport.  

BIAL itself should aggressively disclose all details and be transparent so that accusations of goldplating the project would go away. Till then there will be lingering suscpison in the minds of the general public.

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From Vijay Lakshmi M

June 22, 2008 5:11 PM
The older airport although in the city had a larger terminal!!, it looks like someone was in a big hurry to open or keep their promise of opening this airport this year (obviously having taken huge kickbacks), its truly a disaster. Apart from being miles away, its ill equipped to handle the air traffic or transport into the city, shuttles are all running late and are expensive, taxis are even more so. No lounges are ready, most of the airline staff are new, not trained and speak only Kannada (as the old ones refused to travel so far, in-fact many of them lost their livelihood due to the shift). The terminal itself has no character, no style or design, in today’s world when all airport are competing on their design and functional features (Dubai, terminal 5 at Heathrow, Venice or even Barcelona). Bangalore’s new airport stands out as sore thumb for the Silicon Valley, garden city or any of its other fancy names. It has no chance of even featuring on functionality or compete with domestic airports such as the new ones at Mumbai, leave alone with Hyderabad or international airports elsewhere. And this could really mean Bangalore will loose its edge over Hyderabad (their new airport is really the best in the country today and on par with international airports), it may turn out to be one of worst decisions made by the govt. of Karnataka to open this premature airport. I’m passionate about my city and its hurts to see that for money and power how innocent people are used this way, all appeals have fallen on deaf ears! Viji

From sundar ram

June 23, 2008 12:51 PM
Hi Bangaloreans, I am from Hyderabad and I have used both Bangalore and Hyderabad airports.While I agree with you that Bangalore airport is not as stylish as Hyderabad airport,the fact remains that Bangalore airport has a very much better parking and circulating area.I wish Hyderabad airport makes similar arrangements. sundar ram

From Raghu

June 23, 2008 1:40 PM
While I support the points mentioned in this article as to what the government should do , I would still this classify as one of those numerous bangalore bashing articles on the net( yet with lesser degree of nepotism). Sure Bangalore airport on the outlook is a little shocker but to say it takes roughly that much time to travel in a flight to madras , to travel to the airport shows the naivety in the author (and definately its not like chalk and cheese comparing the bangalore and hyderabad aiports)... Should one really bring to the notice of the author that all world class airports and airports of some important destinations in the world usually are away from the city(Heathrow is a case in point and bangalore certainly is one, probably more than hyderabad). I would still expect peoplpe to look at the positives of the airport for consolation (For one the approach road is just fantastic and far better than that of Hyderabad's) and at the same time work on the negatives with more novelty which is clearly lacking in the articles so far (which clearly intend on bangalore bashing ). If anything bangalore has to learn from, is from its own mistakes rather than compare itself to other cities .

From Raghu

June 23, 2008 8:49 PM
Raghu, Your point on the authors supposed 'naivety' on the Chennai flight time issue is not valid. Take London for example. The city of London has 5 major airports around it (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, City, Luton). These airports are located at varying distances from the city. The closest to the city center is London City airport. London City caters mostly to short-haul European flights (equivalent to say Bangalore HAL to Chennai). Most business people working in the financial district don't travel all the way to Gatwick or Luton to catch a flight say to Amsterdam. Instead they would take a short flight from London City to Amsterdam. London is not the only example. Many cities in developing countries like India have multiple airports; one that is closer to the city-center for short haul flights, and the another on the outskirts for long haul flights. Sao Paulo has Guarulhos and Congonhas. Kuala Lumpur has Subang and KLI, Istanbul has Ataturk and Gokcen, etc. Also, I urge you to look up the definition of the word "nepotism" in any decent English dictionary and use it in the proper context. Cheers, Raghu

From rana

August 26, 2008 5:41 AM
Why make a fuss about the architecture of the airport when the whole city is filthy where we have a 100 feet wide raw sewage canal happily flowing through the city perfuming it!!!. Meanwhile we have the same crap (forgive the pun)in New Delhi, the city thats supposed to hold the Commonwealth games in less than 2 years!!. Jai Hind.

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