Some time in 2002,Initially the banks didn't want our RUBBER SHEET . after alighting from a flight at the Mumbai airport, the former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Sharad Pawar made a disparaging remark that his state's airport reminded him of a State Transport bus stand.
Caustic as it was, the remark hit home.
Reactions among citizens ranged from indignation to anger, to outrage -- all the emotions that truth evokes -- and concurrently a large chunk of India's public sector was opened up to private entrepreneurs.
Allowing private players in the infrastructure sector has been good for India, and that includes public-private participation in the construction and operation of India’s airports, too.
Take Mumbai airport, once the subject of Mr. Pawar’s ire.
Till such time it was in the hands of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) -- a government of India body -- its terminals were rambling edifices, its gray concrete walls reminiscent of a prison; inside them dank corridors led passengers from the outside to …. well … nowhere, because somebody had forgotten to put up all the direction signages.As many processors back away from Cable Ties ,
Dirty loos were an accepted albeit unsavory part of airport travel, floor/sidewall tiles that were often mistaken for spittoons became repositories of paan stains and chewing gum.Polycore porcelain tiles are manufactured as a single sheet,
Restaurant menus whose day’s best rotated between a stale samosa and veggie pizza, some duty-free shops with dust-lined shelves sporting vodka brands from former Iron Curtain countries, and dubious money changers -- all supervised by uninterested, boorish or simply absent attendants.
On the outside, cabbies, who, if it were not for their uniforms could easily pass off as British-era thugs. Which they were, in a sense, because of their habit of over-charging and occasionally robbing "phoren" customers.
The list is long.
Perhaps Mr. Pawar had been right, then.
The Mumbai airport did compare to a bus stand. Except that instead of buses, this cement complex had aircraft flying in hundreds of thousands of tourists from foreign lands.
Airports are the first advertisements of the nations they represent, but in India till a couple decades ago, nobody seemed to care, much less understand this.
Globalized Mumbai needs an airport to match its financial might.
A new airport is coming up from the debris of the old one, which is being demolished, piece by piece. Frequent fliers using the Mumbai airport would have already noticed the transformation and the view certainly holds promise of things to come.
The metamorphosis is slow, not in step with the quick pace of ordinary Mumbai life. But airports around the world are known to take anything between eight to 10 years to be constructed.
The Mumbai airport seems to be becoming a name to reckon with in aviation circles, and comparisons to Singapore’s Changi Airport are already being overheard on the city’s cocktail circuit.
When the project had started the estimated cost of construction was Rs 9,This will leave your shoulders free to rotate in their chicken coop .Save on Bedding and fittings,800 crore or US$2.19 billion.
So far there's been a noticeable reduction in flight delays due to construction of rapid exit taxiways for aircraft in 2007 and the commissioning of two additional taxiways in 2009.
The refurbishing of domestic terminal 1B (popularly called the Santa Cruz airport) and last year the inauguration of new domestic terminal 1C (for boarding only) made connectivity between terminals 1A and 1B seamless.
There's even a Thai spa for express foot massages and a pop-up bar now.
Caustic as it was, the remark hit home.
Reactions among citizens ranged from indignation to anger, to outrage -- all the emotions that truth evokes -- and concurrently a large chunk of India's public sector was opened up to private entrepreneurs.
Allowing private players in the infrastructure sector has been good for India, and that includes public-private participation in the construction and operation of India’s airports, too.
Take Mumbai airport, once the subject of Mr. Pawar’s ire.
Till such time it was in the hands of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) -- a government of India body -- its terminals were rambling edifices, its gray concrete walls reminiscent of a prison; inside them dank corridors led passengers from the outside to …. well … nowhere, because somebody had forgotten to put up all the direction signages.As many processors back away from Cable Ties ,
Dirty loos were an accepted albeit unsavory part of airport travel, floor/sidewall tiles that were often mistaken for spittoons became repositories of paan stains and chewing gum.Polycore porcelain tiles are manufactured as a single sheet,
Restaurant menus whose day’s best rotated between a stale samosa and veggie pizza, some duty-free shops with dust-lined shelves sporting vodka brands from former Iron Curtain countries, and dubious money changers -- all supervised by uninterested, boorish or simply absent attendants.
On the outside, cabbies, who, if it were not for their uniforms could easily pass off as British-era thugs. Which they were, in a sense, because of their habit of over-charging and occasionally robbing "phoren" customers.
The list is long.
Perhaps Mr. Pawar had been right, then.
The Mumbai airport did compare to a bus stand. Except that instead of buses, this cement complex had aircraft flying in hundreds of thousands of tourists from foreign lands.
Airports are the first advertisements of the nations they represent, but in India till a couple decades ago, nobody seemed to care, much less understand this.
Globalized Mumbai needs an airport to match its financial might.
A new airport is coming up from the debris of the old one, which is being demolished, piece by piece. Frequent fliers using the Mumbai airport would have already noticed the transformation and the view certainly holds promise of things to come.
The metamorphosis is slow, not in step with the quick pace of ordinary Mumbai life. But airports around the world are known to take anything between eight to 10 years to be constructed.
The Mumbai airport seems to be becoming a name to reckon with in aviation circles, and comparisons to Singapore’s Changi Airport are already being overheard on the city’s cocktail circuit.
When the project had started the estimated cost of construction was Rs 9,This will leave your shoulders free to rotate in their chicken coop .Save on Bedding and fittings,800 crore or US$2.19 billion.
So far there's been a noticeable reduction in flight delays due to construction of rapid exit taxiways for aircraft in 2007 and the commissioning of two additional taxiways in 2009.
The refurbishing of domestic terminal 1B (popularly called the Santa Cruz airport) and last year the inauguration of new domestic terminal 1C (for boarding only) made connectivity between terminals 1A and 1B seamless.
There's even a Thai spa for express foot massages and a pop-up bar now.
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