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CIAL subsidiary to develop cost-effective airports

Enquiries from Angola, Sri Lanka

Jyoti Koul - New Delhi

After low-cost airlines, it is now the time for low-cost airports. If all goes as planned, the Cochin International Airport (CIAL) model will soon be replicated nationally and internationally. It is the only airport that has been developed at a meager cost of Rs 300 crore, an example of a highly cost-effective airport.

Many foreign countries like Sri Lanka and Angola have invited CIAL to develop similar low cost airports. Even Uttar Pradesh has invited CIAL to do the same. Encouraged by these invitations, CIAL is planning to set up a new subsidiary to develop airports in about six months, which will be known as Cochin International Project Consultancy Services.

S Bharath, CIAL's CMD, said, "We have initiated the process and once it is constituted, it will become a role model, and we will design and conceptulise the airport. We want to come in as consultants."

When asked about the kind of role CIAL will play, he informed, "As of now the role is not very clear to us. We have been asked to replicate the model of Cochin airport. However, we would like to look at them as turnkey projects. The idea is to develop airports that become important not only for connectivity but investment and over all development as well."

Mentioning the Cochin International Airport, Bharath recalls, "It was out of sheer necessity that the Cochin airport was built. It was not planned by anybody or any government; it was the huge NRI population that was interested. There was will to build an airport and it happened."