Over the last few months I have felt that the speed of airport construction has slowed. While there are regular updates on Navi Mumbai and Jewar airports, many others were to be operational by now and a handful should have seen its expansion complete.
This includes expansion of airports at Kolhapur, Pune, Surat or commissioning of airports at various places in Uttar Pradesh like Aligarh, Moradabad or Azamgarh. These were at a stage that news reports indicated they would be operational within weeks, if not months but that was a year ago. In all probability the airport at Ayodhya would start operations sooner than the others.
That takes us to the next question – Why is it so? Were the news reports wrong? Was the progress shared incorrectly? Or is the last phase of the work perpetually delayed? Completion deadlines are aspirational in most cases and the ground reality is different. There has always been a gap between inauguration and shifting of operations.
I often see the connection between inauguration and elections. In the guise of “Public memory being short”, many projects are inaugurated just before the state or country goes to polls. We have seen that with the airport terminal at Shivamogga, Terminal 2 at Bengaluru in the recent past. Kushinagar airport was inaugurated just before the state elections for Uttar Pradesh were announced and Darbhanga airport in Bihar also saw the flights being announced before voting. All of this carefully balances the model code of conduct while ensuring that new announcements are done in line with the rule of the land.
We are less than a year away from the general elections of 2024, with a handful of state elections scheduled before that. Foundation stone was laid for the airport at Datia, in Madhya Pradesh – which goes to polls in the next couple of weeks. We could see a spate of announcements starting soon – which will mean, new airports being inaugurated, new routes being announced and operationalised and announcements of airports. However, the current lean period is a lull before the storm of inauguration and announcements or is this a lull without a storm?
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