Politics has hit the new Bangalore International Airport yet again. The Rs 2,500-crore new greenfield airport will be ready in the coming week and was expected to begin operations on May 11.
But with Karnataka going to polls from May 10, the airport?s opening will be delayed until at least May 26, when the new Karnataka government is expected to take charge.
This is the second delay in the airport?s opening schedule. Initially, it was to begin commercial operations on March 30, but this was postponed to anytime after May 10. Ministry sources attribute the first delay to 60 deficiencies pointed out by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) after a review of the airport. Due to these deficiencies, the airport was denied a licence to operate commercially.
?The ministry and the DGCA gave the developers an estimation that hey should be ready to open by May 10 but the ministry never asked them to open then,? the source said.
According to sources in the new BIAL airport, each day of closure is causing a loss of almost Rs 1 crore which essentially means the already 40 day loss has caused a loss of roughly around Rs 40 crore.The added 15 days will lead to total losses of around 65 crores. These losses are based on the revenues the ready facilities at the airport would have garnered had the airport been in operation.
Incidentally, all the stakeholders in the airport will meet on Tuesday under the chairmanship of civil aviation minister Praful Patel to figure out how to go about implementing the High Court?s suggestion that the concession agreement signed by them be renegotiated.
The stakeholders include the Government of India via the civil aviation ministry, the Karnataka government, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL). Among the issues to be discussed the most important is the closure of the existing HAL airport and levy of Used Development Fee (UDF) by the new airport.