Upgrading airports should only be the beginning
It is heartening to see that more than two decades after India's look East policy was envisioned, New Delhi is finally taking steps to unlock the gateway to the South East Asian nations by developing transport infrastructure within the country's crucial North-East. Earlier this month, Airports Authority of India announced that it is upgrading two airports, one each in Imphal and Agartala, to international standards. In fact, Imphal Airport might be able to boast of an ‘international' tag as early as mid-July.
Much of the work is already done at the airport and the authorities are optimistic that flights from Imphal to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and, of course, Myanmar, will operate soon. This is a particularly significant development given that Myanmar has recently opened up its economy, and direct flights from the North-East to the country will boost tourism and other forms of trade. As for the Agartala airport, it too should be able to join the big league in less than three years and offer significantly improved connectivity to Bangladesh. As of now, the only airport in the North-East that handles international traffic is the one in Guwahati. This has been the case for many years now, and while it is commendable that the authorities are expanding facilities in the region, they must nevertheless proceed with caution and after careful planning. Back in 2002, when international service was first launched from Guwahati with much fanfare, there was just one airline (Air India) operating on one route (Guwahati to Bangkok). The service never really took off, Air India incurred several crores in losses, and within months the service was scrapped.
Now, the only international service available at Guwahati Airport is operated by Druk Airlines, which has two flights a week to Paro in Bhutan. The authorities must learn from this experience and focus, for instance, on carefully mapping profitable flight sectors and routes and working out appropriate deals. This will become even more important as plans to operate a low-cost airline specifically for the North-East take shape, alongside the proposed upgradation of a handful of other airports in the region.
Improvement of transport facilities — and this has to include roads and rail transport as well — should help bring more business to the otherwise relatively isolated North-East. But development, and sustained prosperity as a result of that, can happen when investments come in the critical areas of infrastructure. As things stand, investors have largely kept away from putting money in projects in the North-East. Hopefully, that will change in the months to come.