Airports: Left, Right and Centre

Hi Everyone,
Its been a tough time for me at office.. Ya these guys are making me work ;-) Anyway, thought I should write in to the group once again. It's been quite sometime that I hurled stones into sky with my KingKong review ;-) But this time, I just wanted to write in about being in India and how we all are witnessing a changing nation. It's my strong conviction that every day that passes by in India now will be remembered in the future for one reason or the other. We might not appreciate it but its true! And as Yogi Barret said 'Future is not going to be same as it used to be ;-)"

Ok coming to the point, the news of the day is that Left opposes handing over the modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports to the private operators. I don’t think there is any other party in India that has so much sprung into limelight in the last 20months or so. God, did you ever know that there exist people by names Sitaram yechuri or D.Raja. These guys were lost in oblivion before by a stroke of luck came back right in to focus. Over the last 10years or so, did you ever hear of a Union strike ? I am not saying it myself, the numbers speak - 808 strikes in 1994 to 257 in 2004. Now they are back in fashion, starting from strikes in Honda Motor factory, close out in Toyota kirloskar and now the threat of strikes with the airport modernisation. I really would have appreciated the voice of workforce had I been ignorant or dumb Indian communist?! (Sic!). Out of a 500 million workforce in India, ONLY 4% of them belong to Unions. (Approx. 20 million people!) Out of this 1.8-2.0 million people are employed by Indian Railways alone. (10% of the organized employees!) Then we have state electricity boards, water works, public distribution, roads & building, Road transport corporations etc. etc. Ok I seem to be getting lost in numbers and losing attention :) So who is left fighting to protect?? These slothful public sector employees? And now the laggard airport employees eyeing foreign tourists n desi junta walking into airports for tips to clear baggage claim, 20$ tip to push your luggage cart outside(!!?)?

Airports in India suck big time! And any one who denies this is either blind or never flew ;-) And people don’t understand the meaning of service. All this should be attributed to the lack of whip for the employees. God knows what impression a foreigner landing in Bangalore gets when all the luggage carts are captured by the airport employees and he has no option but to use their 'services' to get the luggage outside! Or the kind of words these 'dedicated AAI employees' use in the local language to describe the foreign women walking in. Thank God, they don’t understand our languages!! So now I guess privatisation is the only option these guys have left out for the government. Ofcourse singapore doesn’t need private players to build its changi aiport because its government officials know the importance of offering good service to their citizens. So when I hear the Left saying that the AAI (Airports Authority of India!) can do the modernisation, I don’t doubt their expertise (may be I should!) but I sincerely doubt their attitude and motivation! The reason I thought of this mail is to emphasise the point in my first part of the mail - that today would be history tomorrow and we all will look back and say 'Those commies tried their best to stop it but here it goes the Mumbai airport challenging the Changi and Hongkong airports!' And I would tell my kids, 'You know boys, there used to be a stinky loo right here when we got off the plane in 2005' :) just the same way as I say now 'I used to use PINE for my email and Lynx for my internet browsing'.

Anyway, I know the mail was a lot of nonsense and totally incoherent. So here is the bottomline: In India today, Left irrespective what is Right vehemently opposes the Right wing, by definition, and the Centre with Manmohan, Chidambaram and Praful patel is Left defending blows in the Centre's Centre ;-) Anyway, keeping aside topological, idealogical, anatomical, political and linguistic innuendoes with the words Left, Right and Centre, I know no Indian cares a rat's behind as to who does the modernization, they just want the god darn airports better! ;-)

I know the bottomline was no more helpful but yes, Writing nonsense does give me a high, indeed :))

Long live free speech,
Phani Mitra



TidBits and References :)

52% of total air traffic last year was handled at the international airports at Mumbai and Delhi.
Dwell time of exports in India is 4 days compared to international average of 12hrs and of imports is 4 weeks to an international average of 24 hours
While cargo carried by air in India weighs less than 1% of the total cargo exported, it accounts for 35% of the total value of exports (So you bet they deserve better treatment than whatz meted out now!)
Infrastructure Task Force paper on Airport Infrastrucutre Policy: http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN003205.pdf
CIA World Factbook on India : http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html