New airports

“Some airports are already operating beyond the capacity but still have scope for expansion. But most of us agree that expansion is not matched with the growth in aviation sector, which is why we are observing congestion at airports. We do not want this when we are aspiring for one billion trips in next 15 years, up from around 200 million (trips a year) now,” the AAI official said.

The issue isn’t just passengers but also runways, flights, and parking slots for aircraft. The number of aircraft with scheduled airlines in India is 620 as on July 31, 2018, up from 448 in March 2016. India’s 17 scheduled airlines operated 9.22 lakh flights in 2017-18, up from 8.1 lakh from previous year. International aircraft movement was 3.79 lakh in 2017-18 against 3.45 lakh in 2016-17.

“When we are looking at saturation point, we are not only looking at terminal capacity. At some places we might not have space for another runway, while terminals can be expanded. But if the airport can’t handle more flights, there is no point in expanding the terminal. The study will reflect that and will also point out the projected traffic so that expansion can be planned accordingly,” said the second person cited in the first instance, who also works for AAI.

In May, Hindustan Times had reported that at least 25 of the 50 busiest airports in India are already operating beyond their capacity, while almost all the others will reach optimal capacity in 2018-19.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on May 2 approved investments in expansion and upgradation of integrated terminals in Chennai, Guwahati and Lucknow by AAI at a cost of ~2,467 crore, ~1,232 crore and ~1,383 crore, respectively.

Minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha, while announcing the expansion plan, said ~1 lakh crore would be invested to increase the capacity of Indian airports.

The government has launched a new initiative called NABH (Nextgen Airports for Bharat) Nirman to enhance airport capacity by five times to one billion trips in the next 10-15 years.

Increasing capacity requires both development of greenfield airports and expansion of existing airports; the plan is to use AAI and also involve private firms.

AAI, which runs all the nonprivate civilian airports in the country, is in the process of implementing plans to create additional capacity in airports in Agartala, Patna, Srinagar, Pune, Trichy, Vijayawada, Port Blair, Jaipur, Mangalore, Dehradun, Jabalpur, Kolhapur, Goa, Rupsi, Leh, Calicut, Imphal, Varanasi and Bhubaneswar with a capital expenditure of ~20,178 crore over the next four to five years.

The private firms that run the Delhi, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad airports are also working on expansion plans that will require an investment of ~25,000 crore over the next five years.

“Airports are not just a shiny terminal building; airside is equally important... capacity of runway and taxiway also need to be expanded. More holistic action plans need to be developed for the modernisation of airports. AAI along, with private developers, should form a joint action group to come up with a modernisation plan,” said Mark Martin, founder and CEO of Dubai-based Martin Consulting.

Adjusted for inflation, fertiliser subsidy rose 15 times over 30 years, irrigation subsidy rose six times, while electricity subsidy has increased 20 times.

“Substantial investment must only come from government. Complementary, smaller investment can and does come from farmers. The perception around the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government initially was that it would bring bold, substantial agricultural reforms. We don’t see that,” said economist S Mohana Kumar of the Jaipurbased Institute of Development Studies.

Another landmark study by Shenggen Fan, along with Gulati and Prof Sukhadeo Thorat, shows that agricultural investments in India, however meagre, have been at least 10 times as effective as subsidies in reducing poverty. Fan is director general of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute, while Thorat is professor emeritus at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Gulati said the highest impact on agri-growth and poverty reduction came from investments i n agricultural R&E (research and education), followed by roads and education. Gulati and his colleagues used a well-accepted statistical tool called “multi-equation system” to compare the relative benefits of subsidies versus investments.

The results should be a wake-up call for policymakers. Every ~10 lakh invested on farm research potentially pulled 328 people out of poverty. Likewise, every ~1 spent on agricultural research and development increased farm GDP by ~11.2.

A similar amount spent on fertiliser subsidy brought only 26 people above the poverty line. Likewise, every rupee spent on fertiliser subsidy added only ~0.88 to agri GDP. Fan’s research, too, points a strikingly similar conclusion. To be sure, fertiliser subsidy hogs the largest share (47%) of all subsidies and the budgetary allocation for it during 2017-18 was ~70,000 crore.

According to Prof Nilabja Ghosh of the Institute for Economic Growth, Delhi University, governments realise the pitfalls, but prefer to keep subsidies high for political gains. “It made sense to offer subsidies to spark a green revolution. We haven’t got out of the trap because of their political importance. If you withdraw subsides, inputs get expensive and farmers agitate. That’s why the transition from a subsidy regime to investment regime has got stuck,” she said. fully autonomous under the law and the Centre “may give directions to the Reserve Bank where considered necessary in public interest to do so..,” writes Subbarao, who was the RBI governor from 2008-2013.

Subbarao himself had differences with then finance minister P Chidambaram . In October 2012, the Congress leader “went public with his displeasure at the Reserve Bank’s decision not to cut interest rates,” according to Subbarao.

“I found that all through my tenure, the government was distinctly uncomfortable with the Reserve Bank raising interest rates and seemed convinced that monetary policy was choking growth,” he writes.

He stresses that his “counterargument to the finance ministry used to be that it was not high interest rates that were standing in the way of investments.”

“What matters in investment decisions is not the nominal interest rate but the real interest rate, which is the interest rate after knocking out the impact of inflation.”

On why central banks need autonomy, Subbarao says in the book that the aim of monetary policies is to “preserve price stability by maintaining low and steady inflation consistent with the economy’s potential growth rate”. This needs long-term views and maybe some short-term pain.

“But political regimes, especially democracies, have little tolerance for such pain; electoral politics push them into compromising long-term sustainability for short-term expediency,” Subbarao adds in the book.

Such differences date back to 1936, when the first RBI governor Sir Osborne Smith quit after 15 months of the founding of RBI (but stayed on till June 1937) following differences with the colonial government on exchange rate policy.

Benegal Rama Rau, successor to the first Indian governor CD Deshmukh, too, had to resign in 1957 after differences over monetary policy, credit policy and deficit financing, according to Rahul Bajoria’s ‘The Story of the Reserve Bank of India’.

Even Manmohan Singh, who was the RBI governor from 1982-85, was believed to have been in a disagreement with then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, according to TCA Raghavan’s ‘A Crown of Thorns’. teered to serve as marshals and flag violations,” Delhi’s environment minister Imran Hussain told HT.

“For the first time, EPCA members have been asked to visit at least one hot spot such as Punjabi Bagh, DTU, Mundka and landfill sites of Ghazipur and Bhalswa and submit reports on what is triggering pollution, and suggest solutions,” said Bhure Lal, chairman of EPCA, who himself has taken charge of Anand Vihar, one of the most polluted areas of Delhi.

To involve residents in this multilayered structure, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has made social media handles through which people can flag violations. There is also the ‘Sameer’ app run by CPCB to lodge complaints.

But the city’s Air Quality Index ( AQI), which had improved to 358 on Wednesday from a peak of 401 on Tuesday, deteriorated once again to 393 on Thursday. A reading between 301-400 on the index is ‘very poor’ and beyond 401 is ‘severe’.

As the particulate matter levels shot up, inching close to the ‘severe’ mark, forecasting agencies including Safar, run by the ministry of earth sciences, said an approaching western disturbance could make conditions this weekend particularly bad.

On Thursday, Union environment minister Harsh Vardhan launched a 10-day clean-air campaign in Delhi-ncr.

Experts say the root of the problem is that while Grap is an emergency response system, long-term goals – which include improving the public transport network, regulating garbage disposal, stopping farm fires in neighbouring states, and reducing road dust – are being ignored.

“We need to take more drastic steps to combat this crisis, EPCA chairman Bhure Lal admitted. “The Comprehensive Action Plan (CAP) for air pollution has been notified. It is imperative that we step up implementation of the long term actions listed in the plan – including augmentation of intracity and intercity public transport,” he added.

The Comprehensive Action Plan of Delhi suggests that the Capital needs to bring down the fine particulate PM10 levels by at least 74% and ultra fine PM2.5 levels by at least 69% to meet the annual permissible limits.

“Grap is not substitute for long-term actions that need to be taken to combat toxic and deadly air pollution,” said Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director (research and advocacy) of the Centre for Science and Environment.

Long-term measures under CAP include a parking policy for the city, bus rapid transit system in targeted high-frequency routes, increasing the bus fleet, permanently shutting down of older and polluting power plants, moving to cleaner technology, and making it obligatory for developers to dispose of debris at designated sites, among others. But this year, too, little was done to implement these over the non-pollution months.

“The main problem of DelhiNCR is particulate matter, which also includes natural dust. Apart from tackling the emission sources, we also have to have to tackle our land use to curb natural dust. Desertification and changing agricultural land for building infrastructure is a major issue in the fast expanding Delhi NCR region,” said D Saha, the former head of CPCB’S air quality laboratory.

INCREASING CAPACITY REQUIRES BOTH DEVELOPMENT OF GREENFIELD AIRPORTS AND EXPANSION OF EXISTING AIRPORTS; THE PLAN IS TO USE AAI AND ALSO INVOLVE PRIVATE FIRMS. For the first time, EPCA members have been asked to visit at least one hot spot and submit reports on what is triggering pollution, and suggest solutions

BHURE LAL,

EPCA chairman