Bhattacharya to head City airport project

Bhattacharya to head City airport project
Deccan Herald

The State government is understood to have suggested to the Civil Aviation Ministry the name of Mr Bhattacharya, who retired a couple of years ago as chief secretary. He later headed the Civil Servant Pension Reforms Committee as chairman.

Former chief secretary B K Bhattacharya is all set to take over as the chairman of the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) in the vacancy caused by the resignation of Infosys boss N R Narayana Murthy.

The State government is understood to have suggested to the Civil Aviation Ministry the name of Mr Bhattacharya, who retired a couple of years ago as chief secretary. He later headed the Civil Servant Pension Reforms Committee as chairman.

Mr Murthy resigned under controversial circumstances as he was under fire from former prime minister H D Deve Gowda for criticising the then Janata Dal (S)-Congress coalition for the ills of Bangalore infrastructure.

Official sources told Deccan Herald that Mr Bhattacharya’s name as the BIAL chief could be announced any day. He will head a board of directors that includes representatives from the State and Union government as well as the Siemens-led consortium which is implementing the project at Devanahalli, near Bangalore.

Albert Brunner is the chief executive officer of the BIAL in which State and Central government hold 13 per cent stake each and the rest 74 per cent by the private consortium which also includes Zurich Airport and Larson and Toubro (L&T).

Mr Bhattacharya will take over at a time when work at the airport site is proceeding at a good pace and the first flight is expected to take off early 2008. However, he has an immediate task cut out: that of integrating the second phase of airport work in the first phase itself, thanks to the massive surge in air passenger traffic from Bangalore.