Daedalus, the mythological Greek craftsman, created wings from feathers and wood glued with wax for his son Icarus. Modern day Indian politicians have tried to do a Daedalus too: they have spent over Rs 300 crore in the past decade to build airports for their constituents. Money that could have funded upgradation of decrepit international airports. Worse, unlike Icarus who managed to fly before being singed, the constituents in question have failed to even take off because neither the Indian Airlines (ia) nor private operators find it profitable to use these airports.

Airports There are no flights to 45 of the 125 airports.	Investments In 10 years, AAI has sunk Rs 300 crore in these white elephants.	Flights Six airports account for 67 per cent of flights.	Losses 114 airports lose Rs 185 crore. Only 11 are profitable.
Vijayawada Investment: Rs 12 crore and Rs 9 crore Date of decision: May 1995 and June 1998 Civil aviation ministers: Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ananth Kumar No. of flights: Nil Losses since 1998: Rs 3.89 crore Politicians love Vijayawada. Mooted without any feasibility studies, the airport has been backed by P.V. Narasimha Rao, Azad, Kumar, N. Chandrababu Naidu and the late G.M.C. Balayogi. No operator or airline has backed their visions with flights.

POLITICAL PURSUIT Debunking feasibility studies on airports, politicians follow their personal agenda.

Jabalpur

Investment: Rs 8 crore Date of decision: March 2001 Civil aviation minister: Sharad Yadav No. of flights: Nil since September 2002 Loss: Rs 1.92 crore Sharad Yadav, who studied engineering at Jabalpur, engineered a need for scheduled flights to the city and upgraded the defence airstrip to enable civilian flights. IA pulled out this September.

Pathankot Investment: Rs 33 crore Date of decision: November 2001 Civil aviation ministers: Sharad Yadav, Chaman Lal Gupta (MoS) No. of flights: Nil On June 29, 2001, the foundation stone was laid for a civilian terminal at the Pathankot air base. In November 2001, the AAI sanctioned Rs 33 crore for infrastructure at Pathankot to promote tourism. To date, no scheduled civilian flight has used the Pathankot airfield.

Purnea Investment: Rs 30 crore Date of decision: Awaiting NoC from Defence Ministry Civil aviation minister: Syed Shahnawaz Hussain No. of flights: Nil Of the 41 million air travellers, Patna accounts for just 1.5 lakh passengers and incurred a loss of Rs 5.91 crore in 2000-1. Yet Bihar has been sanctioned two new airports: at Gaya at a cost of Rs 65 crore and at Purnea.

INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS STINK but little is being spent on them. However, as much as Rs 447 crore is being pumped this year into 23 loss-making airports.

Of the 125 airports maintained by the Airports Authority of India (aai), 45 either don't cater to commercial flights or are deemed non-operational. Of these, six have been added in the past five years. In March 2001, the then civil aviation minister Sharad Yadav invested Rs 8 crore in amenities and facilities for an existing defence airstrip in Jabalpur and declared it ready for commercial traffic. The decision was contrary to traffic projections. But Yadav, who studied engineering at Jabalpur, engineered a justification and ordained that ia fly thrice a week to the new destination. Less than a year later, ia has stopped its flights and Jabalpur has been placed in the no-flight zone.

Jabalpur is not alone. Nor is Yadav one of a kind. In November last year, his junior Chaman Lal Gupta sanctioned Rs 33 crore to enable Pathankot to receive commercial flights. A year on, neither has a single commercial flight landed at Pathankot nor has any airline operator deemed it profitable to operate in the region.

True to form, successive governments at the Centre have been consistently indiscreet in apportioning funds for unviable airports. Last year, the Government cleared Rs 65 crore for building Gaya airport in Bihar ostensibly to promote Buddhist tourism. It was, of course, the Congress ministers who patented the technique of creating no-flight stations; Nanded, Amravati and Kargil being some recent instances. As prime minister of the United Front government, H.D. Deve Gowda got his civil aviation minister C.M. Ibrahim to approve of an airport at Hassan even though there were two other airports just outside the stipulated 150 km range. Mercifully, the idea was abandoned.

As with the Railways, asset creation is mostly a function of political calculation, not economic rationale. But unfortunately, while trains can be flagged off on new routes, airlines cannot be forced to fly to newly anointed airstrips, especially when there is little or no traffic. The Kargil airport is a sterling example. Promoted by Ghulam Nabi Azad during the Congress regime at a cost of Rs 37 crore, it is difficult to envisage commercial airlines queuing up for air- traffic control (atc) clearance to fly to Kargil situated as it is on the edge of the Pakistani artillery range. Once when an aircraft-an AN-32 commandeered by former Western Air Command Air Marshal Vinod Bhatia-did use the strip, it earned the dubious distinction of crossing the loc and almost triggered a conflagration. Now the Civil Aviation Ministry is trying to get the Indian Air Force to adopt the station.

If you thought these experiences would have a salutary effect, think again. Civil Aviation Minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain has asked the Ministry of Defence for a no-objection certificate (noc) to allow commercial flights to Purnea. The estimated cost of enrolment: Rs 30 crore. Hussain, however, denies the decision is political. "My constituency is Kishanganj, not Purnea." He also disputes that this is yet another white elephant on the aviation map. "I don't agree that only metros should have airports. We have requests from MPs, and Sahara Airlines wants to start a service from Purnea to connect north Bihar."

Hussain also adds that the Government "is looking at cutting losses by allowing operation of smaller airports by private operators if they fly to these destinations or by nris". At a macro level though he agrees that "setting up airports at places where the possibility of flights is remote is not justified". But it isn't just an issue of justifying building airports. The question is of rational resource allocation. These airports are being set up at the cost of critical facilities for passengers passing through major metro airports.

Of the Rs 543 crore profit earned by the top 11 airports in India in 2000-1, nearly Rs 400 crore was delivered by the international airports at Mumbai and Delhi but there is no plan to upgrade either. This when there is also no disputing the fact that all airports are badly in need of upgradation, from requiring new luggage trolleys to better-designed user facilities. The delay in revamping could partly be attributed to the logjam in the privatisation policy. However, the main reason is that the profits are used to mop up the Rs 185 crore in losses made by 114 airports.

Awaiting take-off Of the 125 airports maintained by the AAI, 45 don't receive any flights and cost almost Rs 45 crore a year.

FLIGHT OF FANCY Privatisation could speed upgradation of airports, says Shahnawaz Hussain. But the policy has been stuck on the runway for four years.

Even as passengers who pay for facilities at international airports suffer broken escalators, lack of aerobridges, creaking trolleys and a stinking environ, a major portion of aai's current expenditure is on loss-making airports. As a former civil aviation secretary says, "While the aai is interested in improving the infrastructure at airports in the four metros, politicians have an agenda of their own." To appreciate the magnitude of misplaced priorities consider this: this year, the aai has spent Rs 143.38 crore on airports at Agartala, Bhavnagar, Dimapur, Indore, Jamnagar, Jaipur, Kangra, Kargil, Lilabari, Ranchi, Rajamundry, Nagpur, Pathankot and Vadodara-all loss-making airports. Add to this the Rs 486 crore to be spent on 25 other airports, of which only two, Kozhikode and Hyderabad, are profitable.

Hyderabad Investment: Rs 70 crore on extension of runway Date of decision: October 2001 Civil aviation minister: Syed Shahnawaz Hussain No. of flights: Over 30 a day It is a busy and profitable airport. Yet extension of runway is not viable due to obstructions in the path of a landing aircraft such as a jumbo jet. The extension work is on even as a new international airport is coming up at Shamsabad, 35 km from the city.

Kargil Investment: Rs 37 crore (revised in February 2000) Date of decision: July 1995 Civil aviation ministers: Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ananth Kumar No. of flights: Nil Built to increase interconnectivity and tourism in the snow-bound Ladakh region, civilian usage of this airfield situated close to the LoC has been virtually ruled out post-Kargil. Efforts are on to convince the IAF to adopt this white elephant and use it as a forward air base.

Even the Rs 31.43 crore allocation this year for extension of the runway at Hyderabad (see box) is backed by political and not economic rationale. But Captain S.N. Reddy, aviation adviser and special secretary to the Government of Andhra Pradesh, disagrees: "The expansion is in keeping with the growth in international traffic. From 65 international flights and 14,000 passengers about three years ago, the traffic has jumped to 224 international flights and 36,000 passengers a month." Reddy adds that "aai can get back the money it invests in two to three years". Considering that Hyderabad clocked profits of Rs 4.57 crore in 2000-1, it would take at least 12 years for aai to recover the Rs 70 crore investment unless the profits quadruple. Even if they do, the expenditure flies in the face of the plans for a new airport at Shamsabad, 35 km from Hyderabad.

The aai has spent just over 7 per cent of its total expenditure on profitable airports. Worse, there is no plan or budget of any significance on upgradation of airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata which appear more like railway junctions and less like international airports. And this, four years after Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee announced creation of five world-class airports. The officials are, of course, at pains to clarify that the delay in upgradation is not due to funds.

The Amendment Bill, 2000, paving the way for leasing of airports to private investors, is irretrievably stuck with the Standing Committee on Transport and Tourism. The Government has thus chosen a new route for take off-joint ventures with private investors. Hussain explains, "The atc and security functions will remain with the government, while the upkeep and administration of airports will be managed by joint ventures." He adds, "We are expecting the report from our consultants any day and hope to transfer major airports to new operators by July 2003."

Given the ministry's track record, it's a claim that invites scepticism. It took the Government four years to figure out that the privatisation bill wouldn't take off before it returned to the bay. The fact that the standing committee hasn't cleared the proposal indicates political opposition.

Hussain, however, is emphatic that he is ready to fly this time. "We will catch the flight," he says. Hopefully, it will not be from Purnea or Jabalpur.

- with Amarnath K. Menon