Questions still unanswered

By R. Jayaprakash

Bangalore, May 13: "We have gag orders from the ministry of civil aviation. The matter is subjudice and we cannot comment." This is what the Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) says a day after it sat down with the MoCA and told the latter it would not budge on the HAL airport closure issue.

The decision to close down HAL airport facility for commercial operations has drawn sharp reactions from industry captains and the public. With about two weeks to go for the opening of the Devanahalli airport, connectivity to the airport remains the biggest issue and its handling capacity remains in doubt.

The 21 Expressway, which envisages a six-lane controlled access road from Outer Ring Road to BIA, has not moved an inch. The project remains on the drawing boards of PWD and is now being passed over to NHAI for execution.

Meanwhile, the Rs 3800-crore high-speed rail link connecting M.G. Road and BIA has hit a road block. A few weeks ago, the Railways submitted a non-compliance report for the project, blaming technical issues and land acquisition hurdles. The state government, which wants to build the rail link itself, is at this late stage thinking of calling for a tender to prepare the project report.

The BBMP continues to put up its magic boxes and build service roads between the Raj Bhavan and the Hebbal flyover to make that stretch — the only connecting road to the airport — signal-free.

The BIAL had commissioned Lufthansa Consulting (LHC) in 2005 to undertake a revised traffic study, given Bangalore’s explosive air traffic growth. LHC’s most optimistic estimates projected 10.1 million passengers by 2010. The reality is that Bangalore has already clocked more than 10 million passengers this year.

BIAL itself estimated that the airport would have to service only 11.3 million passengers by 2015, seven years from now.