Making up for Lost Time

The Civil Aviation Ministry’s Vision 2020 document envisages creating infrastructure to handle 280 million passengers by 2020. Eight years away from that goal, given the flurry of activity, there is hope that airport modernisation projects might move on fast track.

Those who have travelled through the Indian metro airports in the 1970s and the 1980s will recall a boxy, drab environment with basic facilities and nothing fancy. If one was lucky enough to travel abroad through the gleaming, super efficient, passenger-friendly airports even in the then emerging economies like Singapore, one wondered why Indian airports could not match up. When those stray voices became a questioning clamour post-1991, it actually began to strike our policy planners that while India had a tremendous advantage in terms of world class airports during pre-independence days, the nation had not risen up to the impetus of airport modernisation that neighbouring countries had caught on to, and that we needed to do more.

Poised to be the third-largest aviation market by 2020, the government plans to develop India as a regional civil aviation hub. That there is a strong desire to make up for lost time is manifest in the dynamic airport modernisation plan in which the private sector has been assigned an important role. India’s first 100 per cent private airport is likely to become operational in Karaikal (Puducherry) in 24 months.

Of the 456 airports and airstrips in the country, many were built before or during World War II. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) that manages 125 operational airports has an ambitious goal of raising the number to 225 by 2020. Apart from Karaikal in Puducherry, the government has accorded in-principle approval for airports at Shirdi and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra, Durgapur in Bengal, Shimoga, Hassan, Gulbarga and Bijapur in Karnataka, Datia in Madhya Pradesh and Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh. Meanwhile, Sikkim’s first Greenfield airport, Pakyong, is fast nearing completion.

Prior to 1991, there was no urge to improve airports as the AAI was making profits and the prevalent feeling was that Indian metro airports were good enough, says Dr Sanat Kaul, former Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, and currently Chairman, International Foundation for Aviation and Development (India Chapter). Post-liberalisation, with the increase in middle class income and exposure to international travel, especially from people in the more advanced South Indian states, demand began to emerge for better airport infrastructure.

In 1996, the public-private partnership (PPP) model for upgrade of airports was considered by AAI. But it took another eight years for the bidding process to commence for modernisation of Mumbai and Delhi airports. Dr Kaul recalls that it was only in the year 2000 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister (PM), the PM Office sent a note stating that the PM desired better quality metro airports. It was the first such recorded comment from the Prime Minister of India and this set the whole process in motion. A committee was formed with the AAI and a decision was taken on the privatisation of airports. The first contract was awarded in January 2006 to the Delhi International Airport Pvt. Ltd (DIAL), a consortium led by the GMR Group, to develop the Indira Gandhi International Airport. The contract included a 30-year lease for the management of the airport with an in-built provision for extension of the lease by another 30 years. For Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, the GVK Group-led consortium, the Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd. (MIAL), won the contract on terms similar to that of DIAL.

Meanwhile, work on the Cochin International Airport progressed rapidly, making it the first Greenfield airport to be operational in India under the PPP model. This was followed by world class international airports at Hyderabad and Bengalore. However, tenders for modernisation of Udaipur and Amritsar airports that were floated in 2008, were aborted when the AAI unions objected to the PPP route for modernisation of airports. The decision was justified by the government echoing the unions’ stance that air-port modernisation could end up being a pure real estate game.