Devanahalli Airport

My city’s new Airport is ready. As soon as it got declared as operational, it got closed (till May 10 )by the central agencies saying it is yet to meet many norms.

Why is this hurry to open this airport? And what happened to the old one? There is lots of hue and cry going on about whether to keep the old one or not. People’s surveys showed that they want the old one still functioning, at least for domestic flights. Top business people also expressed similar views.

But the tragedy is the government and other agencies decided to close it (and keep it for defense department and may be for the VIPs (yes that is #$%*&@ politicians), resulting many people becoming unemployed (mainly taxi drivers. Well, on the other side, many others will get some new jobs in the new airport), which resulted in strike by that airport employees since past two days.

Whats mainly wrong with the new airport? Its far from the city and there is no dedicated roads to reach there. One needs to travel at least one and a half hours even for a short 30 minutes air travel. Considering the up and down travel, one has to spend about three hours and at least 2000 bucks extra, coz of the distance. If there is heavy traffic or jam, then things are worse. Then why did they start a new airport without considering how to reach there?

The new airport is situated from where locals hardly travel by air. The old airport’s history is exactly opposite. Even from my own apartment complex, at least one person uses it on a daily basis. City needs that airport very badly, since lots and lots of people who live in the city travel by plane, mainly it being the IT capital of this country. So what happened?

The answer is simple. There are some politicians who are into real estate business, which includes a former Chief Minister and his father , a former Prime Minister (they were farmers but now billionaires). It’s all their crooked idea and plan. They bought acres of land in that village first, and then came out with the idea of airport in that village, near their land. Once everything went fine, they sold their land (or they will sell it very soon) at very high price, which might have made them millionaires. They are not bothered how people reach there coz, they have helicopter to reach the airport. Everyone who lives in this city know this story and its very funny that the media are mum about this.