http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name =mitra%2Fmitra162.txt&writer=mitra
Illogic of the Red Indian [Chandan Mitra] <In other words, there can be no rational argument against modernising our metropolitan airports, especially at Delhi and Mumbai. You only have to look at Kochi, India's only privatised airport, to gauge the benefits. It is possibly India's best airport today and also profitable. In fairness to the CPM, they don't exactly argue against modernising airports altogether. They say build them afresh. Now that's easier said than done. Acquiring the amount of land needed for a Greenfield airport that's does not entail one whole day's travel into the countryside, is tough.Then there's the cost. Moreover, the Left says you can't shut down the existing airport. In Hyderabad, they made a big issue insisting that the Greenfield airport must share traffic with the existing one at Begumpet. Parallel airports immediately make the project economically unviable.> ----------------- Good to hear that the Left is for retaining Hyderabad's Begumpet airport! They should now figure out how to make parallel airports viable at a time when the obsession is with "world class" (that is synonymous with Taj Mahals) and attracting big money (which then promptly calls for old airports to be reverted to military use!). The key is right sizing in an integrated way as is required in Goa.
