Capital city’s new pride
by
AJ Philip |
New terminal efficiency needed to uplift the poor
ABOUT three years ago, David Aikman, former long-time foreign correspondent of Time newsmagazine and author, told me at a conference in Sydney a little apologetically, “I recently visited Delhi and found that the airport has not kept pace with the economic growth of India”.
A self-confessed India-lover, he recalled that the airport was more or less the same when in 1975 he returned as quickly as he arrived in the country to report the imposition of the Emergency for the American magazine when he was told that all his reports would first be cleared by the censor. Aikman was happy to hear that work on a new terminal at the Indira Gandhi International Airport had begun.
Last fortnight when the new facility was inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, my first impulse was to invite Aikman to India so that he could see the ultra-modern terminal. A new leaf in India’s aviation history would be turned when, for the first time, on July 15, Emirates Airlines’ superjumbo aircraft Airbus-380, which has a capacity of over 900 passengers and crew, would land in New Delhi.
The passengers on the maiden flight would find the 5.4 million sq. ft. terminal with 78 aerobridge gates and 95 immigrant counters comparable to the best airports in the world. The terminal has many firsts to its credit. The most significant is that it took only 37 months to complete the project, compared to the 45 months China took to build the new Beijing airport in time for the 2008 Olympics. In a country, notorious for delays in construction, this was no mean achievement.
It was built through public-private partnership at a cost of $2.7 billion. The airport is futuristic in the sense it is capable of handling a four-fold increase in the number of passengers by the year 2020 when there would be 180 million domestic passengers and 50 million international passengers per year.
The prime minister rightly said, “a good airport would signal the arrival of a new India”. Modernisation of the airports at Hyderabad, Bangalore and now at Mumbai would push the country to an altogether new league in international aviation.
While I am happy that sportspersons and officials who will visit New Delhi to take part in the Commonwealth Games later this year will be able to board a Metro train right from the airport itself to reach the city centre and then the Games Village by a connecting Metro train, the thought that the Capital city has inadequate facilities for its own citizens is disconcerting.
It must have been a mere coincidence that a week after the new terminal was inaugurated, there was a water riot in another part of the city, across the Yamuna river where the Commonwealth Games village is fast coming up. People protesting against lack of water supply fought pitched battles with the police. The population of the city has been growing exponentially while infrastructural facilities, including Metro trains which are jam-packed during peak hours, remain the same. A little drizzle and many parts of the city are flooded.
Yet, the Capital city continues to attract migrants from far and near because the country’s development has been uneven. As the new terminal is thrown open to the flying public, the Planning Commission is hotly debating a special plan for 35 districts which are considered the worst Naxalite-affected. This is the area which has been witnessing frequent clashes between the extremists and the security forces.
These districts cover a vast area and a population larger than that of Canada. The special Plan for this area envisages several infrastructural projects like power, water, road, health and education facilities. Yet, the cumulative outlay is only a little over $2.5 billion, the amount spent on the new terminal. In other words, the cost of an airport terminal is equivalent to what the government intends to spend on the basic infrastructure in 35 large districts covering a vast population.
The attraction of the Naxalites to the poor and deprived sections of the people is that they highlight the lopsided priorities of the government. This was brought home in sharper focus when, last week, this writer met Daya Bhai, a septuagenarian from Kerala who has been working among the tribals in Chhindwara district in Madhya Pradesh for the last three decades.
Declared “Woman of the Year” once by a mass circulation women’s journal, she said how the contractors in collusion with government officials were depriving the tribals of their statutory minimum wages. While she admits that there are signs of progress, she adds that the tribal people have a long way to go before they can claim to be proud, equal citizens of the country.
Though Chhindwara, where she lives is backward, it is not like Kalahandi in Orissa or Singhbhum in Jharkhand, where conditions of living are sub-Saharan. Starvation is a reality which neither the slogans of “India shining” nor the glittering malls in Gurgaon near Delhi can hide. Jean Dreze, a welfare economist, who has been campaigning for food security for the poor people, estimates that it will cost $25 billion per year.
The amount may appear staggering but it is only 1.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and is definitely affordable, particularly when it ensures a happy, contented and well-fed people, whose children will not suffer from malnutrition. By building a 21st century airport in record time, India has proved that it can achieve what appeared to be impossible until a few years ago. What is required is the will. And there will surely be a way.
Oman Tribune |
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