Bangalore’s new airport hangs in balance again

Bangalore: The opening of a new airport in Bangalore, scheduled for the wee hours of 23 May, could get delayed yet again after a two-judge bench of the Karnataka high court asked for the minutes of a government meeting last week which decided that a city airport be closed down to make way for operations at the new one. The airport opening has been postponed twice already.
The court decision comes in the wake of charges that the state and Union governments are hurrying through with opening of the new Bengaluru International Airport before the court, which is hearing a public interest litigation against the closure of the city’s existing airport, reopens on 26 May. The court is on a summer break until then.
A meeting of Union government and Karnataka state officials with representatives of the Bangalore International Airport Ltd, or Bial, the new airport’s developer, at New Delhi on 12 May decided that the existing airport, run by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, or HAL, be shuttered keeping with a 2004 agreement with the Siemens AG-led developer.
On Tuesday, the litigant, Bangalore City Connect Foundation, or BCCF, filed a petition before the vacation bench of the high court demanding a stay on closure of the HAL airport until the court resumes on 26 May. The vacation bench that hears urgent pleas when the court is on vacation will take up the BCCF plea for hearing on Thursday, the midnight of which the new airport is to open.
21/05/08 K. Raghu/Livemint

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Categories: Airports May 2008, New May 2008