Mumbai: India’s plans to develop and modernize airports in 35 cities other than the four metros has hit an air pocket even as domestic airlines continue to buy more planes. And even the modernization programme of two metro airports, in Chennai and Kolkata, is incomplete.
Some of the other projects are non-starters and airlines are blaming difficulties in acquiring land, raising money and lack of clarity in guidelines for the stalemate that has hit the world’s ninth largest aviation market.
Union civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi said the development of 35 non-metro airports will happen, but in phases.
“The modernization of non-metro airports is happening. There were some issues in modernization of Chennai airport because of (problems in) land acquisition. The work will start soon as it (this hurdle) is cleared. The Kolkata airport modernization is also taking off,” Ravi said.
The deadline for the launch of the refurbished Chennai airport was June; that for Kolkata is August.
As for the other 35, the process started in April 2008 with the government calling for bids for modernizing the Udaipur and Amritsar airports, only to scrap it soon after over fears that the development plan would become a pure real estate play. The process is yet to restart, for these two airports and for 33 others.
Experts say the aviation industry will pay the price for this delay. Nawal Taneja, professor emeritus in the department of aviation at Ohio State University and a respected aviation writer, said infrastructure constraints will hurt the Indian aviation industry.
In a report, Capa quoted Airports Authority of India (AAI) chairman V.P. Agrawal saying the number of passengers at Indian airports could reach up to 450 million a year by 2020 due to continued double-digit domestic traffic growth, creating the need for investment of up to $30 billion in airport infrastructure over the next 15 years. The number was 54 million in the last fiscal.
“Without the infrastructure, airlines will not be able to achieve the growth in demand predicted. There is also no question that other developing markets will surpass India in terms of growth,” Taneja said, citing the example of China, which is building infrastructure, including airports, at a much faster rate than India.
06/07/11 PR Sanjai/Live Mint
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