When Interests Clash: The "95-Paise Nexus"
By S.G.Vombatkere
29 April, 2014
Countercurrents.org
Extension of Mysore's Mandakalli airport runway from 1.85-km to 2.60-km to accomodate bigger aircraft for better air connectivity – “Project Air” – and the development of NH-212 in the Mysore-Nanjangud stretch to 15-metres width - “Project Road” - are projects that have clashed. Government of Karnataka (GoK) has asked for realignment of a portion of NH-212 to permit lengthening the airport runway, while the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) maintains that work has commenced and NH-212 cannot be realigned at this stage. [Ref.1].
The stakeholders for Project Air are air travellers, and the airlines and hospitality industries. The stakeholders for Project Road are Mysore-Nanjangud daily commuters who waste long hours in congested traffic away from both work and home, and risk horrendous road accidents until the Mysore-Nanjangud stretch of NH-212 is developed, and will pay more for travel because the distance will increase with realignment.
The demand for Project Air is spearheaded by industrialists who have persuaded GoK that better air connectivity will boost tourism, since tourism increases as connectivity increases. However, air connectivity brings high-spending tourists and mostly benefits the star-hotel industry, while road (and rail) connectivity brings much higher volumes of tourists and benefits Mysore's lower-end service and trade sectors. Especially counting the high advantage of surface transportation over air transportation for freight which influences day-to-day living costs, even for tourism, more Mysoreans can benefit from road transportation than from air transportation.
No doubt, the convenience of air connectivity enhances business, but the economic benefit of this public investment flows to persons who are already at the economic high-end. On the other hand, road transportation serves short-haul, low-spending bus commuters who travel for as little as Rs.4 per kilometre and find even that increasingly unaffordable. Further, highways not only connect the places at their ends, but also serve passenger and freight destinations en route, while airlines are point-to-point services.
Air transporation, besides being far more capital-intensive than road transportation, is about 15-times more energy-intensive (in kWh per tonne-kilometre) for a 1,000-km air trip, and even higher for shorter air trips. Investment in Project Air, to expand and encourage the most energy-intensive transportation mode in times of rising fuel price imports and falling fuel availability, defies all ecological and long-term economic logic.
It is indicative of governments' proclivity to spend more (capital cost, operating cost, and maintenance cost) that it invests in loss-incurring air-conditioned buses instead of ordinary buses, and air travel over road-and-rail travel, instead of introducing greater numbers of cheaper transport to benefit more people. Years ago, a former Prime Minister said, that of every public rupee spent, only 15 paise reached the targetted public benefit. Today, that may be downsized to 5 paise, and spending more rupees multiplies the 95 paise by the number of rupees spent. That is why governments, regardless of which political parties run them, are interested in big projects. Social and environmental costs and implications concerning the interests of poorer stakeholders are never a weighty factor for central or state governments, which are focussed on GDP-growth provided by big-ticket projects of big-investment stakeholders.
Project Air stakeholders, who have easy access to and influence on bureaucrats and politicians, insist on NH-212 diversion. Noting that Project Road was undertaken after obtaining necessary clearances from GoK, Project Air now proposed by GoK is simply a change of mind, smacking of adhoc-ism. When there is insufficient air traffic even for the present airport, operating larger aircraft on the extended runway can only be even less commercially viable both for the airport and the airline operator. Project Air betrays breakdown of the planning process of evaluating the benefit:cost factor of public fund investment. The current face-off between Project Air and Project Road indicates arbitrariness in governance and lack of planning in a state that boasts of Sir M.Visveswaraya's planning prowess.
Some engineers propose a compromise solution of extending the runway and constructing a road tunnel under the runway, so as not to realign NH-212. This proposal of a road tunnel adds another element of doubtful economic and commercial viability to the existing extremely doubtful economic viability of Project Air. However, despite all social-economic-ecological infirmities, Project Air may well prevail over Project Road because of superior stakeholder influence. In that event, there are two options: Realign NH-212 to extend the runway, or construct NH-212 underneath the extended runway. The immediate beneficiaries for either option is the “95-paise nexus” of suppliers and contractors, politicians, bureaucrats and technocrats. The losers are farmers who lose land-livelihood if NH-212 is realigned, and the urban Mysorean who is denied stable water supply, effective garbage disposal and other civic services for lack of funds which will be spent on Project Air and Project Road.
References
1. “Still a few hurdles for airport expansion”; The Hindu, Bangalore; April 26, 2014; p.2.
Major General S.G. Vombatkere, VSM, retired in 1996 as Additional DG Discipline & Vigilance in Army HQ AG's Branch. He holds a PhD degree in Structural Dynamics from I.I.T, Madras. He is Adjunct Associate Professor of the University of Iowa, USA, in international studies. With over 370 published papers in national and international journals and seminars, his current area of interest is strategic and development-related issues. E-mail: [email protected]
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