Airport cities: The new paradigm
December 26, 2008
One of the aspects of neoliberal accumulation in India and Bengal has been the steady creation of real estate enclaves, hubs, and gated cities. A new chapter in this process is the impending concept of airport cities, with the usual promises of job creation, downstream employment, and development. An idea imported from highly developed nations, the aerotropolis, as it is called, will demand the creation of attendent SEZs and the provision of infrastructure like water and electricity by local taxpayers. A land acquisition notice for an airport city in Andal (Burdwan, West Bengal) was served in December 2008.
Job demand for Andal land - Dec 24, 2008
Acquisition notice at Andal for airport city - Dec 11, 2008
Delhi nod to Andal airport city - Dec 5, 2008
Airport city: The new paradigm - May 3, 2008
******************
Job demand for Andal land
Dec 24, 2008
Villagers set to lose their land to the proposed airport city project in Andal today said they wanted direct talks with the developers and demanded jobs and shares as promised by the Jindals in Salboni.
Bengal Aerotropolis Proj-ects Ltd needs around 3,500 ac- res for the Rs 10,000-crore plan in Andal, Burdwan, 220km from Calcutta.
Most of the land has to be acquired from villagers. In Salboni, West Midnapore, Jindal had to acquire only 500 acres because the government had the remaining 4,000 acres.
In Salboni, every landloser family has been promised jobs and stocks of JSW Bengal Steel during the first issue of shares to public.
“We want the same package. We don’t want the government to come between us and the promoters,” said Susanta Dutta, 34, who owns around eight acres of single-crop land.
In Andal, landlosers were offered between Rs 7.5 lakh and Rs 11.24 lakh an acre depending on the fertility and location of their plots. They were also promised a 1-cottah plot outside the project area for every bigha acquired.
Some 500 villagers like Dutta have formed the Committee to Protect Andal Landowners’ and Farmers’ Interests.
The committee also wants a higher price for their land.
Arjun Mondal, 82, who has 20 acres, demanded Rs 18 lakh an acre and a job for his 34-year-old- son, who is a graduate but unemployed.
Land belonging to nearly 19,000 villagers has been identified for the project that includes an airport, IT park, industry clusters, shopping malls, housing complexes, hospitals and educational institutes.
A Bengal Aerotropolis official said it would be impossible to negotiate with 19,000 villagers. “It would be impossible for us to go and talk to each villager. This is why we spoke to the political parties that represent the villagers.”
All parties except the Trinamul Congress, which boycotted the meetings called by the district magistrate, had agreed to the government’s offer.
********************
Acquisition notice at Andal for airport city
Dec 11, 2008
The government today issued a notification for the acquisition of around 3,500 acres for the airport city in Andal amid murmurs of protest.
Burdwan district officials said the notification was put up in panchayat and block offices and villagers have been asked to file their objections, if any, within a month.
Land belonging to nearly 19,000 villagers has been identified for the Aerotropolis project, 220km from Calcutta.
Landlosers will be paid between Rs 7.5 lakh and Rs 11.24 lakh an acre depending on the fertility and location of their plots. They will also get a 1-cottah plot outside the project area for every bigha acquired.
A section of villagers de- manded a much higher price. “The compensation was discussed with political leaders in air-conditioned offices, not with us. We want more for our land,” said Susanta Dutta, 34, a share broker who owns around 8 acres of single-crop land.
He would not settle for less than Rs 18 lakh an acre. “If I don’t get it, I won’t give up my land. We will launch an agitation on the lines of Singur and Nandigram.”
District magistrate Manish Jain said the compensation was fixed after a series of all-party meetings. However, the Trinamul Congress had not participated in any of the 10.
Moloy Ghati, 35, a grocer with 5 acres, also sounded like Dutta.
The villagers have started mobilising opinion and are likely to hold a meeting soon. “We will form our own committee. Why will some politicians fix the price for our land?” said Arabinda Banerjee, 56, who has around 4 acres.
According to the government’s package, those who lose homes occupying less than a cottah will get a one-storey house and those losing homes on larger plots up to five cottahs. Besides, there are vocational training and social infrastructure development schemes.
*********************
Delhi nod to Andal airport city
Dec 5, 2008
The Centre has given its final approval to the proposed airport city project at Andal in Burdwan.
The steering committee on greenfield airports headed by the civil aviation secre-tary has accepted the tech-no-economic feasibility study submitted by the project promoter. The letter of approval is expected next week.
Bengal Aerotropolis Project Ltd, the promoter company, will take about two years to operationalise the airport after the land is acquired.
The onus is now going to be on the Bengal government to settle issues with Coal India, which has objected to the project saying the land has substantial coal reserves.
Several local panchayats have pledged support to the airport city, but the Trinamul Congress remains non-committal. “We are yet to see their package. Our state leaders will take a decision,” said Prabhat Chatterjee, the party’s Burdwan secretary.
Aerotropolis is set to come up on 3,500 acres. In the first phase, the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation has to hand over 2,300 acres.
The Rs 10,000-crore project will have an airport equipped to handle Boeing 737-800 and Airbus 320-200 planes. Changi Airport of Singapore will be the operator. A city that will include IT and industry clusters will be developed around the airport.
A state government source said : “Now that Delhi has approved it, the state can move with confidence.”
The promoters plan to give a cottah for every one bigha (20 cottahs) acquired in addition to the cash compensation.
*********************
Airport city: The new paradigm
Picture a dot and three circles around it, each larger than the preceding one. The innermost circle, a stone’s throw away from the airport, will house businesses and facilities that feed the airport and feed off it—like trade zones, warehouses and logistics hubs. The middle circle will house companies and other things business like convention centres and hotels. The outermost circle, 20 miles from the airstrip, will have clusters of high-rises for people who work in the two inner circles, and their other necessities and indulgences.
In terms of size, the airport is dwarfed by everything around it. Yet, it’s the primary reason the three circles can create a bustling, self-contained ecosystem. Suvarnabhumi is the shape and logic of our future cities. The essence of this thought is that rather than shunt an airport to the periphery of the city, put it in the middle and build everything around it.
Flights of fancy
Aerotropolis is the concept the makers or renovators of Nagpur, Durgapur, Kochi, Hassan, Hyderabad, Delhi and Bangalore airports have in mind as they build or modernise their airports. While their projects may not have the scale and sophistication as a Suvarnabhumi, the idea is the same.
They are being built not just as junctions for flights to take off and land. They are being designed to shape and drive economic activity in a region. They will alter the cityscape. They will change where and how we live, work and play. Says Professor John D Kasarda of Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina, who conceived the aerotropolis model: “Airports will shape business location and urban development in the 21st century as much as highways did in the 20th century, railroads in the 19th and seaports in the 18th.”
Since business linkages are paramount to make an aerotropolis viable, special economic zones (SEZs) are an obvious catalyst. “Without the SEZ, the airport will not be viable. Without the airport, nobody will come to an SEZ,” says RC Sinha, Managing Director, Maharastra Airport Development Company (MADC), which is developing a cargo hub and an SEZ in Nagpur over 4,000 hectares at a cost of about Rs 5,500 crore over the next 20 years.
When finished, the SEZ and the hub will employ 120,000 and give indirect employment to another 300,000. According to Sinha, five million will settle in and around the hub. About 35 companies have booked space in the SEZ, including TCS, Wipro and L&T. Around 30,000 flats are being developed. And annual passenger traffic in the airport, which currently sees only 20 flights a day, is projected to grow from 500,000 to 14 million.
In Hyderabad, the GMR Group is looking to develop assembly hubs for gold and jewellery units and for medical tourism, besides IT, pharma and financial services, around the new airport it built. Says V Jayaraman, Chief Operating Officer (Property Development), GMR Group: “The artisans in similar assembly units in the Gulf are mostly from India. Working closer home can reduce the lure of travelling overseas.” In Kochi, Cochin International Airport Limited is planning to invest Rs 5,000 crore in a 450-acre aerotropolis, which will include an aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility, aviation training school, hotels, amusement park, golf course and an IT park.
Air pockets
Given the huge contiguous land requirement and project cost, an aerotropolis, in its truest form, is likely to come up around non-metro cities and towns. Like the Bengal Aerotropolis project, a Rs 10,000 crore greenfield project across 2,375 acres in the middle of the Durgapur-Asansol industrial belt. This will trigger a reverse flow of businesses from cities to towns, and spread the fruits of economic success, across regions and people.
For now, though, aerotropolis plans in India are either on the drawing board or in early stages of execution. A lot more needs to happen for it to become a reality. Says Albert Brunner, Chief Executive Officer, Bangalore International Airport: “The aerotropolis concept will succeed in India, but we don’t know how long it will take.” The question marks are less over attracting business and more over getting supporting infrastructure like water and power in place. “Several agencies need to work together, which may take time,” he says. Adds GMR’s Jayaraman: “The government should create a single-window clearance system.” Many dots need to be joined to complete the circle, but the idea is taking wing.
This report appeared in Outlook Business
