At a curtain raiser event for the forthcoming Wings India 2020 air show in Hyderabad, the aviation secretary iterated that Bengaluru had the potential to become the aviation hub of India. While that should be a cheering note for Karnataka, its aviation could do with a bit more of push, possibly by impelling itself into exploiting the centre’s regional aviation initiatives.
Air connectivity to regional and remote airports strewn across the country, with some of them languishing in various states of disrepair, has always been a concern for successive governments at the centre; indeed, a policy entitled Route Dispersal Guidelines was promulgated in 1994. However, as it tended to serve as a ‘stick’ to cajole airlines flying on profitable routes to deploy a proportion of their flying effort to remote and regional routes without offering a ‘carrot’ for operations in these areas, it remained a distasteful methodology for promoting flights to Tier II/III airports. In 2016, the National Civil Aviation Policy was introduced; its contents spawned the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), also referred to as UDAN or Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik. As states were important stakeholders in the Scheme, they were exhorted to sign MoUs with the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) and give their consent to participate in it.
Karnataka was a bit laggardly and was the twenty second state to sign an MoU; 19 airports/airstrips were identified under the MoU for RCS of which 15 were unserved at that time. Karnataka State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (KSIIDC), the nodal agency for developments of airports in the state, was to develop airstrips at Chikkamagalur, Karwar, Madikeri, Raichur, Gadag, Bagalkot, Davangere and Udupi (the first three were to be taken up on priority); there has been little progress to show in this direction. Kalaburagi commenced operations in November last year while Bidar, an Indian Air Force airport, started getting civil flights in February this year. This brings the number of operational airports in Karnataka to eight, including Bengaluru and Mangaluru, both international airports.
The existence of two international airports in the state deserves a hinterland of small airstrips to connect all cities and towns to these airports but progress has been tardy. MoCA announced recently that five more airports will be made operational in the next two years. However, a look at the current year’s budget discloses the absence of adequate allocations to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for the purpose.
Privatisation would have been the alternative to public sector development of greenfield airports but private interest in such projects is lukewarm, partly because of the uncertainties and vagaries of government policies. The three private airports in the state (Koppal, Harihar and Sedam) exist because of the business interests of their owners which are non-aviation in nature. The prospects of AAI being allocated adequate funds to develop new airports in Karnataka in the near future appear bleak. It is time for the state government to introspect on how a private player can be enticed to do so.
Group Captain AK Sachdev (Retired) is an aviation professional and was Chief Operations Officer of a domestic airline
AK Sachdev
Group Captain (Retired)