The sensational announcements have been done. And they have created the necessary sensations that were expected as well. Anger in a few places, mockery from a few others and genuine concern in a few quarters. All of this would still have been well had there been well thought out reasons behind the decisions. Now that the announcements have been made and the initial reactions have come, what is required is action, and that seems to be lacking. Clearly the emphasis behind the announcements seems to have been more with a view to optics than genuine public interest. The state government is very clearly clueless as to what to do next when it comes to the new secretariat and the new airport.
Let us begin with the secretariat. That decision at least had all the hallmarks of a spontaneous one. And therefore it would not be appropriate to expect that thought had been given to the consequences. But can an elected state government really afford to do anything spontaneously without bothering about the consequences? Surely the advisors to the Chief Minister are aware that there is something called a Master Plan, of which the third edition is overdue? And something as disruptive as a new secretariat ought to be taken into account in such a document? And what about studies on the load that such a large complex will put on its immediate environment? That no public consultation of any kind was held before the announcement is evident from the recently launched fishermen protests against the Pattinapakkam option. And from the arguments put forward by the fishermen, we can see that they have clearly thought through the impact of the secretariat, something that our Government has failed to do. The latest in this saga is that the Government may be backtracking in the face of the fishermen protests and criticisms from (retired) city planners – that qualification is necessary because those in office never open their mouth and become vocal critics on superannuation after the damage is done.
We now come to the question of a new airport. That the party in power was opposed to the earlier choice of Parandur is not news. The TVK had made its opposition clear even when the announcement of the site was made. But having expressed its disapproval and also declared that if elected it would reverse the decision, it obviously did precious little. A responsible opposition would have even then embarked on alternatives so that it would be prepared in case it is elected to office and has to take a decision. The concept of shadow cabinets is well established in mature democracies and our State parties ought to be setting an example for the rest of India. On the other hand, what is clear is that the party never expected to win and now that it has, has been left with no option but to reverse the earlier airport decision without pondering over the alternative possibilities. The end result is further delay in a project that is bound to be time consuming even in implementation. In the interim, the present airport is not covering itself in glory with something as routine as a taxi terminal awaiting the pleasure of a VIP to inaugurate it.
Taken overall, the present Government is displaying ineptitude in many ways. While the secretariat can wait, the airport sadly cannot and the city’s image is getting tarnished. This magazine does not subscribe to the popular view that we need a glamorous new airport, but what we have is truly a shoddy facility compared to which those in even Tier Two towns are better.