COMMENTS

Devesh,

If the choice is between, in your words 'unsubstantiated word of BIAL' over the 'studied and technical report of AAI', I would choose Siemens hands down everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.

I'll tell you why:

1. Siemens is one of the largest companies in the world and they did not get that way by cheating third world countries. They have a reputation that is exemplary, for god's sake, their medical and life-support equipment is trusted the world over. While it may be a very effective rabble rousing technique for the politicians to play the exploitive foreigner card, believe me, their reputation in their customer ranks is far more important and valuable compared to a measly $100M. Just as an FYI, the Coca-Cola brand alone (excluding the company's operations) is estimated to be worth over $75B. I'll dig up the case study by either HBS or Stanford called '100 most trusted companies', Siemens is on that list.

2. AAI on the other hand has a track record of corruption, lethargy, inefficiency, dismal performance, and customer neglect. So what if this guy you spoke to was a 'walking talking encyclopedia on the terminal norms as prescribed by IATA'? Big deal, anybody with a reasonable amount of intelligence (AAI is certainly that) and interest can read and memorize a set of manuals/publications. Everything they have done has taught me to expect nothing more than the absolute bare minimum, just enough to make do.

Call it cynicism if you like, but when you've experienced their service for over 35 years it really is a healthy dose of realism.

--amaku

P.S. BTW, AAI did not make the list of 100.

P.P.S. BTW, I believe my absolute contempt for any organization associated with GOI & GOK is perfectly justified through experience. I have been involved in negotiations where we were told after a winning bid to pad it by an extra 25% or else approvals would be delyed further!! Ofcourse, we withdrew our bid and swore to never do business with GOK.

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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. 

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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.

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