Would anyone know the latest on our airport front? I wish our DC and the airport project liaison office in Mysore (is it operational?) hold a public hearing to educate us on the issue. Airports in other Tier II towns - Pune, Madurai, Salem, Pondy - where the modernizing move was presumably made later than in Mysore now boast of functional airports. Pune has air connectivity to Dubai, a move that is reported to have opened up foreign market for horticulturists and producers of farm perishables in Pune and neighbourhood interior districts. Flowers from Pune that used to sell for Rs.2 now fetch for farmers as much as 20 cents.
During a recent trip to Chennai I noticed Air Deccan’s afternoon flight to Pune carried three times as many passengers (plus cargo) as the Bangalore flight (4.30 pm ) did. The low cost carrier had a flight to Kochi as well, around this time. If only the Mysore airport were up and running by now, we could have had Capt. Gopinath and his Air Deccan opening up Mysore, not just for incoming tourists, but also for an air cargo outgo of flowers/fruits/vegetables and farm perishables from Mysore, Mandya, Madekere, and Ooty, and also places in neighbouring Kerala.
Mysore’s tourism potential is well-known. And air-connectivity would facilitate IT units seeking alternate locations in Tier II towns. What's more, there is no reason why air-connectivity won’t do to Mysore what it has done to Pune. Our chamber of commerce and organic/horticulture farmers association would do well to sponsor a market study on the impact of air connectivity on export of horticultural and other farm perishables from the Mysore region.
Viewed in this wider context, our unconcern for seeing an early resolution to litigation over acquisition of a 20-acre patch (while the rest of 154 acres required for airport expansion is already in govt. possession) appears unpardonable. Isn’t it time our concerned and informed citizens (who claim to have an association), and MGP (if their hands aren’t already full) took initiative for early closure to the land acquisition dispute.
As I see it, the citizenry has three options: 1) pressure or legally associate themselves with the govt. in their move to have the stay vacated;
2) file a public interest litigation; Or
3) persuade the landowners concerned to withdraw their case in the larger public interest.
Those more informed in matters, legal, could come up with better ideas.
The benefits outweigh the costs, its a no brainer that we need an airport. thats what we have been bloggin about. I have been scathing in my attacks on my blogs. I don't believe for a second that 20 acres of land not associated with the runway or tarmac or anywhere near any of the critical areas, as I understand, can hold up an entire project. The AAI is poorly managed and badly run (means the same!), our politicians have no spine and our people don't either. The best thing that can happen is that we get an airport. The worst thing is what has happened for the last two decade, all talk-no action.
Q: Are we going to get an airport in Mysore?
A: Actually short answer: NO.
I want to be proved wrong, deperately! Hope other's have better suggestions because I don't. Anything else I say may sound boring and I may end up sounding like a broken record.
Yes, dear captain Murthy! You are right! The airport may not come through in the near future. The Government of Karnataka, headed by H.D.Deve Gowda's son appears to be keen on driving our all infrastructural projects from Mysore - Wipro, Infosys, Fab City, NICE, airport, doubling of Mysore-Bangalore railway line, and also from other places like Mangalore from where the barge power project is proposed to be shifted to Cochin by 2008.
Mysore Airport will become a reality only when birds cannot fly, Fish cannot swim and when pigs can look up the sky! So is the case with doubling the Bangalore- Mysore Rly Line. In that project, the two parallel lines (11)will meet and circle themselves to become a 0! The last of the Great Projects- The 4 -lane track will take many more years before the last of the humps and the hallas are straightened out. The New PWD Minister is already planning 'service' Roads. I don't know for whose 'service' it is!
