I am happy that the Minister is visiting and inspecting and all that. But if this article is to be taken as it is, then these visits, scrambling to find solutions, giving two weeks deadline to clean up etc. is fundamental misunderstanding of the problem. What happens after two weeks? There are surely few clean ups that can be done in two weeks. Catch a few dogs. Clean up the toilet. Replace the broken panels. Few more maybe. Then what? It is about incentives. Incentives forces institutions to build competence. If they dont then the institutions die. All societies need certain public institutions. The ones we need, and that are public, try and fix the incentives, etc. so it can function. AAI is not one of them. There is no reason why AAI needs to build airports. Even if they do, there is no reason why they should operate it. In fact the problem is when the competent operator - who have run airports to global standards - are not involved in the construction, and surely planning and design of the airport - you end up handing over a lot of problem to the operator. AAI has no incentive to operate airports well. Operations means a lot of things. Including aesthetics of the shops in the airport - just as an example. There are obviously a million other things. These things cannot be taught to AAI whose fundamental roles and incentives are very different from any global airport builder or operator. So Minster can visit. Minster can give deadlines. And then we can recycle these articles all over again in a few months. There is more. What about linking of the airport with all other modes of transport. Again just as an example. AAI has had zero incentive or interest in any of this. For example, when you get our of customs in Hong Kong airport, the first mode of transport - literally inside the airport - is the Metro Rail. Not half a kilometer outside, dodging traffic, mess, parking lots, and dogs. Right there with Common Ticketing counters right next to nice restaurants. That is your first choice. Then the next choice is double decker buses. Then and only then is the parking lot and car. In fact I have been to HK few times. I am yet to see the parking lot. Never had to. Go to JFK. The train is right there. Same goes for many of the good airports. This I am sure takes serious interest and incentives on the part of the airport to work with the city to integrate all this. Not simply build a bunch of buildings and pretend you are a separate country. (Of course the city also should at least pretend that the airport belongs to the city and not to some far away entity.) I guess in some respects we still have some way to go. We dont expect Minister visit every time our cell phone has a problem. Or in the many areas of our daily life where we wouldnt dream of a Minister visit to solve our problems. Railways, some airports, .... we still expect some guy from Delhi to come and inspect and straighten out the problems. Good luck. (Believe me when I say this. There are around 10 different entities that are responsible for various aspects of the airport and surrounding areas. I am not talking about airplanes and them flying in and out. I mean from transportation, to roads, to garbage, bunch of essential things that make an airport an airport. We have famously built a building. Everything else is Hail Mary! or Govinda, GOOOOVINDA! Dont know the Islamic or Buddhist or Jain or Sikh or Parsee or Voodoo or Pastafarian equivalent of these.)
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 07:43:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015