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Short term fix - Lease out HAL airport to BIAL?

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Written By silkboard - 24 March, 2008

BIAL Bangalore Infrastructure Corruption Transparency HAL Airport Aviation

On the ever so hot HAL vs BIAL debate, I saw an interesting letter to editor column of TOI (Fri Mar 21) where author Narayan G sort of suggested this - Why not lease HAL airport to BIAL itself? That could be a short term fix till BBMP/state government improves connectivity. BIAL would get revenue from HAL as well as BIAL for sometime, hopefully that will give them enough revenues to keep them from going to courts over breach of contract. We would get better facilities at HAL airport. And since BIAL would want to gain efficiency of operations by consolidating all air traffic at BIA, they will keep pushing everyone on the connectivity issue and wouldn't want to hang on to HAL for ever.
Not the best arrangement, but who wants a legal entangement here that would ruin the already bad large PPP project execution reputation of our state.

COMMENTS

why short term? Let this be

narayan82 - 24 March, 2008 - 04:03

why short term? Let this be a long term solution. Why do we need a Defence Sector Govt Dept. to run a public airport? In case any has TOI for Friday 21/03 pls see my letter on Pg5 - i stated exactly the same module!

I was qouting you Narayan

silkboard - 24 March, 2008 - 04:06

I was referring to the same letter you wrote Narayan. Have edited the post to mention you.

thanks :)

narayan82 - 24 March, 2008 - 04:15

but you see no one wants to consider this as this is where politics enters. HAL will not give the PTB...and the defence ministry is not even likely intervene. And they are also going to have to give up Yelahanka. I hear the govt is giving them land near Kolar. I'm starting to miss a govt in the state though the last one left a very bad taste...

I had mentioned this much

mcadambi - 24 March, 2008 - 07:55

I had mentioned this much earlier.  The counterparties to the concession agreement (GoI, GoK, Siemens-L&T-Zurich Airport) can renegotiate a new CA where in HAL airport could be leased out to BIAL untill connectivity projects such as the Rail Link from BRV grounds in MG Road is complete in 2012 or so.

RE: Sandeep ........ Railways

sandeepckeerthi - 18 July, 2008 - 23:47

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. Praveen Kumar, General Manager of SWR

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. 

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