Parliamentary panel flays closing of old Hyderabad, Bengaluru airports

New Delhi: A parliamentary committee today reprimanded the government for promoting private interests by closing down old Hyderabad and Bengaluru airports and said the move would encourage other private operators to demand closure of existing airports to thwart competition.
The Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture "is of the opinion that by closing these airports, government has indirectly promoted the business interest of the private airport operators."
The old airports at Bengaluru and Hyderabad were closed down in 2008 after the new airports operated by private-led consortia became functional.
In a report tabled in Parliament today, the Committee, headed by CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, said the government had "opened a Pandora's Box and all concessionaires in future will insist on closing the government-owned old airports to thwart competition to them."
Maintaining that there was still "ample time to revisit the issue", it asked the government to make use of the old airports which have been "built by tax payers' money".
Observing that it considered government's "reluctance in this issue as very unfortunate", the panel said the civil aviation ministry's contention that flight operations out of the closed airports in the two cities would jeopardise flight safety was "fallacious and erroneous".
06/05/10 PTI/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Airports May 2010