AIRPORT COUNTDOWN: Road work moves at snail’s pace

Road work moves at snail’s pace
AIRPORT COUNTDOWN
31 MONTHS TO GO
The Times of India

Bangalore: Even as construction work for the Bangalore international airport is in full swing at Devanahalli, progress on ground infrastructure to reach the airport is snail-paced.

Given Bangalore traffic, officials estimate that travel from Majestic to the new airport will take nearly two hours by April 2008, the deadline for the airport’s commercial operations. For a person travelling from Bangalore South, it will take a full hour more.

So, including the three-hour advance time for international travel, a person living in Bangalore South will have to leave home six hours ahead to catch an international flight: The same as going by road from Bangalore to Chennai!

Anticipating this problem, the government has chalked out plans for easy transport to the airport: The six-lane national highway from Hebbal flyover, with road over bridges (ROB) across two level crossings and a trumpet-shaped interchange for unhindered flow into the airport.

“We have got the technical evaluation done for the trumpet interchange, which will cost about Rs 40 crore. The CM has written to NHAI, asking them to take up the interchange under the same contract as the six-lane highway, to save time,’’ infrastructure secretary Vinay Kumar told The Times of India.

But things are not that simple: Nearly 60 acres have to be acquired for the trumpet interchange along the national highway. KIADB officials said this process had not even begun, though Kumar maintained that the final notification would be issued within a week. The two ROBs at Dodjala and near the ITC factory, meanwhile, are still standing mute and half-done. The South Western Railway, which has undertaken the construction, is said to have been hit by escalating steel prices.

Kumar said: “We are hoping that the ROBs will be ready in about 10 months.’’

Two alternative routes to the airport were mooted when chief secretary B K Das held the post of infrastructure secretary in 2000: A dedicated road from the outer ring road that would go directly to the airport and a rail link from the Cantonment station to deposit passengers straight to the flight boarding area.

In place of a new, dedicated road, the public works department is now supposed to upgrade a major district road via Hebbal and Hoskote, but there has not been any action on this front yet. A feasibility report has been completed on the rail link and is still to be cleared by the cabinet.

SECOND MONTH REPORT CARD
Work on: Boundary wall, runway, apron area and finer engineering details for terminal.
Completed: Site offices, workers quarters, material testing labs, pre-casting yard, quarry and stone-crusher operational.
Action taken: All traffic on road cutting across runway stopped, one village has shifted out, second one in process and illegal quarry operations stopped.