Trafficking in chaos

How much money will accrue from the doubling of peak hour route, navigation and parking charges at the three metro airports? Not an insubstantial amount. We recommend the money be given to a social sector scheme, like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Of course, much of that extra allocation, like regular fund disbursals for these schemes, will be wasted. But that would be infinitely better of the two evils — the other being that the rent extracted from carriers and passengers going to the civil aviation bureaucracy. The finest example of this bureaucracy is the Airports Authority of India (AAI). AAI, and its militant unions, fronted the years-long subversion of the airport modernisation policy. Delhi and Mumbai airports were cleared for private sector development only last year. Serious work has only just begun, and there will be an inevitable lag between the planning and the execution of projects that will increase the airports’ carrying capacity. But of course air traffic has continued to increase and will continue to increase, with attendant problems of congestion. Thus we have the worst case scenario of bureaucratic amorality: babus fought to retain control over airport infrastructure and rendered airports unfit for high volume, modern air travel; and, having done that, they now want to abuse their pricing powers by asking parties who have no choice to cough up more usage charges.

The civil aviation ministry has been kind enough to inform us that capacity to handle higher traffic will be in place by 2008. And that the increase in airport charges are just ‘short-term’. Whether they are short-term or not, isn’t the question. Why are we having to wait till 2008, that’s the question.

The ministry also says the higher charges are to tackle an emergency. But if that was the case, and if public interest was the guiding spirit, the ministry would have been content with simply lowering non-peak airport charges. The civil aviation babus gave the game away by doubling peak hour rates — that’s the atypical behaviour of a sarkari quasi-monopolist service provider. It would be right to argue that this official action again highlights the need for an independent civil aviation regulator. But that would be missing the point — creating a regulator will take time; in the meantime those who created chaos at airports will happily profit from it.