BIA has no room for passengers: MPs' panel

BIA has no room for passengers: MPs' panel

Terminal can accommodate only 1,928
passengers, reports Srikanth Hunasavadi

Srikanth Hunasavadi

A parliamentary committee report on the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) has virtually upheld the November report of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) which had faulted the infrastructure and facilities available at the new aerodrome.
The report also mentioned that the Centre has committed an irregularity and seems to be unconcerned about upgrading the facilities at the airport.
Following the report from the AAI last year, the government had formed a parliamentary committee to assess the state of the infrastructure at the airport. The 142nd report of the parliamentary committee about the "Functioning of private airports and the related issues" revealed that BIA is not up to the mark and it has not followed the original concession agreement.
According to the concession agreement agreed upon on July 5, 2004, the BIA was supposed to build a terminal of 71,500 sq metres to accommodate around 2,733 passengers. But it has built only 71,310 sq metres, out of which the basement area is about 18,665 sq metres. This area can't be used by the passengers since it's reserved for storage, services and utilities. Added to this, the kerb area of 5,616 sq metres outside the terminal also can't be accessed by the passengers, the committee said.
Also as against 2,733 peak hour passenger (PHP) capacity, the BIA terminal has a capacity of only 1,928 PHP.
The committee has also expressed its displeasure over the maximum capacity of the airport, which is much below the capacity that was initially decided upon, as per the concession agreement.
There are further discrepancies: the BIA is obligated to provide the facilities as per IATA standards, according to which the maximum commercial area permissible in the terminal area is 12% of the total passenger area.
But in case of BIA, 30% of the terminal space has been utilised for commercial area, the committee in its report said. The government has failed to verify the area and capacity of the airport before giving BIA the permission to begin operations, committee said.
The committee noted that the closure of the old HAL airport has not been mentioned a mandatory in the tender for the BIA.