Airport Blues
Democracies, especially the Indian version, are good at putting the wrong people in key jobs. This is because politicians are asked to take charge of a ministry or a department, not because they know anything about it but because they are politically important. This, as that marvellous TV serial Yes Minister showed, makes them complete prisoners of their bureaucracies. Bad enough to begin with, the problem of having to find jobs for the lads is compounded in a coalition where there is a further diminution in Prime Ministerial prerogative. He or she simply has to take what is on offer, rather than exercise some discretion and choice.
The appointment of Sharad Yadav as the minister for civil aviation is a direct consequence of this system. And true to precedent, he has become a complete slave of his bureaucracy. Otherwise, it is hard to explain why a pragmatic man like him should be saying that the leasing of the Mumbai, Delhi, and Calcutta airports will have to be delayed. According to a news report, he has said that the Mumbai airport can't be leased out because there is no scope for expansion; the Delhi airport can't be leased out because of VVIP security which cannot be entrusted to private operators; and the Calcutta airport can't be leased out because there is a mosque on the site for the proposed new runway! That only leaves the Chennai and Bangalore airports which can be leased out to private operators. So much, then, for the grand vision of the task force on infrastructure and the Union Cabinet.
It is clear that as far as the two bureaucracies -- the ministry and the airport authority -- over which Mr Yadav presides are concerned, neither the task force nor the Cabinet matter. They don't like the idea of handing over the airports to someone else and so have come up with ingenious reasons for preventing leasing.
The fact, however, is that none of these reasons is very important. The VVIPs at Delhi use the air force apron, so their security is not a problem. Indeed, what is a problem is the blind eye that Mr Yadav's ministry turns to the ice-cream vendors and sight-seers who congregate at the eastern tip of the runway. One of them could easily be a terrorist with a missile. As for Mumbai, the problem is not one of space but of clearing the encroachments. This isn't all that hard and the Mumbai local authorities are expert at it. As for Calcutta, the mosque can be respectfully moved. Even the Saudi Arabians have done this when they were building their highways and certainly the Koran does not impose a ban on moving mosques. In fact, it is temples that are impossible to remove. In any case, the CPI(M) government ought to be asked to use its secular credentials to serve a local and a national cause.
Mr Yadav has also said that all airports should not be leased together but the leasing should be sequenced. He has not bothered to explain why. This, too, is complete nonsense, doubtless fed to him by his bureaucracy. The Prime Minister needs to have a quiet word with him.