Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Even to the most distant,detached of observers,it must by now be clear that Mumbais airport just cannot handle the citys growing traffic. Pressure has built on the current airport,in Santa Cruz,for years; and the civil aviation ministry has warned,over and over again,that air traffic through Mumbai is quick approaching capacity for a single airport. And now comes news that,in fact,the airport is beginning to cut back. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel told this newspaper that there will soon have to be a general ban on additional flights for turboprop jets in the private category. Even if there arent that many of us who travel in private turboprop aircraft regularly,enough people do visit major financial centres of the sort Mumbai wants to be,who use planes in that category. This is an unmistakeable signal that that long-warned-of saturation of the airport is finally at hand.
Indeed,Patel went on to say that without additional capacity,I can tell you that by the end of 2011 it will become very difficult for Mumbai to take more flights. For the business hub and largest port of a country trying for double-digit growth,that is more than troubling: it is close to being disastrous,and for the country as whole,not just Mumbai or Maharashtra. And what progress has been made,you might well ask,on expanding that capacity? Why is not another airport in the works? The answer,of course,is that the second airport,destined for Navi Mumbai,and planned almost as long as troubles at Santa Cruz have been foreseen,has been the victim of lazy,dilatory,license-raj environmentalism.
