NEW DELHI India finally opens its massive new Indira Gandhi International Airport this week, five months after its scheduled inauguration was scrapped because of shoddy workmanship and suspected corruption by airport authorities.
Named in honor of the late Prime Minister, the complex was to have been opened in a much publicized ceremony by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on Nov. 19, 1985 the 68th anniversary of his mother’s birth. Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated OM Oct. 31, 1984,
But a few weeks before the inauguration, an enraged Gandhi was forced to change his plans,
On an inspection tour, Civil Aviation Minister Jagdish Tytler had found the departure lounge half-built and littered with construction materials, electric cables exposed and laborers vainly trying, to finish work on time.
Airline companies were astonished when asked to move their offices into the new terminal from ‘New Delhi’s overcrowded and outdated international airport in time for the opening.
“We were shocked when asked to shift to the complex that had no facilities, said Devinder Mittal, an Air India official. “The proposed inauguration was a joke.”
Contractors said they had been aiming to finish the airport in 1986 five years after work began and charged the Aviation Ministry forced them to bring the date forward to Mrs., Gandhi’s birthday to please her son.
“We paid for that blunder,” said one engineer. “The inauguration
fiasco out focused the magnificent airport that has come up, built entirely with indigenous expect But the Aviation Ministry suspected more serious reasons for the unfinished work and launched an inquiry.
Within days the ministry found cracks in the tarmac and that the floor of the terminal building was ‘uneven and made with substandard materials, reported India Today magazine, one of India’s leading weeklies.
The inquiry found shoddy workmanship in the drainage, electrical and air conditioning systems, the magazine said.
It said the ministry suspected corruption by officials of the government department in charge of the construction, the International Airport Authority of India. Its chairman, P.S. Dere, and a senior engineer, H.S. Bhata, were dismissed.
The inquiry, according to news reports, revealed that some Airport Authority officials had accepted bribes from private contractors.
“We know of at least one official who built his house as the airport construction progressed,” said one contractor.
The contractors accepted the government charges and agreed to repair the faults for free when the ministry threatened to prosecute. The actual cost of the airport is now expected to be 80 percent higher than the $52 million projected in 1981.
The problems have been rectified and airport authorities maintain the 600,000 square foot terminal,2 miles from the old facility on the southern outdates of the capital, will be among the world’s most advanced.
“See the complexes my baby,” said Airport Authority executive engineer Jai Bhagwan Sharma. “When it is ready, the foreigners, ‘comparing it with their own airports is bound to be impressed,”
Officials say the spacious terminal, to open May 1, will treble New Delhi’s passenger handling capacity to 3,300 per hour.
No longer will passengers have to walk across the tarmac to and from their planes. The new V-shape complex i fitted with nine “aero-bridges” which connect the aircraft directly with the customs and immigration lounge. Airline officials agree the new .Airport will reduce passenger and cargo handling time. “We now have the facilities and, if used properly, this airport can rival the best in the world,” said the representative of one U.S. airlines.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 2, 1986
