The following is the text of the speech of the Prime Minister, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the start of the construction of the new Bangalore International airport today:

“I am happy to be present on this memorable occasion. Bangalore is the pride of India. The new International Airport that it is going to have will also be a pride of India.

Today we are doing the “Shri Ganesh” of a novel airport project with private sector participation, a prestigious venture in the history of civil aviation in India.

Bangalore is the aerospace capital of the country. It has many prestigious institutions like ISRO, HAL, NAL, ADA, and others. Bangalore is also widely regarded as the “Silicon Valley” of India because of its high software exports. Bangalore has earned a name for itself on the IT map of the world. Therefore, it deserves nothing less than a world-class airport.

I remember that I had responded to this demand while inaugurating the prestigious Bangalore IT.Com conference November 1998. Now the time has come to redeem this common wish of all of us.

Karnataka is a State that has a congenial industrial climate and has attracted high investments in various sectors. Moreover, Karnataka is also blessed with scenic beauty, and many historical sites. It has a huge untapped tourist potential.

Due to this an airport of international standards is a long felt need of Karnataka to meet and sustain the economic development and convenient air travel from Bangalore and abroad. The limitations of the existing airport have started restricting growth in passenger and cargo traffic in Bangalore, especially for floriculture and other high-value but perishable agricultural commodities.

A new international airport in Bangalore was a longstanding demand of the Government and the people of Karnataka. All political parties in the State are united behind this demand.

I must mention here that Shri Ananth Kumar, when he was the Civil Aviations Minister, did much to move this idea forward. I am sure that his successor, Shri Sharad Yadav, will ensure the success of this project.

I assure you that the project will not suffer from the delay that has marked its initial conceptual stage. If we want to build an airport to service airplanes that can fly at supersonic speed, our machinery for approval and implementation must also work with supersonic speed.

Therefore, let the new Bangalore airport become a model for all such prestigious infrastructure projects, proving that India can build world-class projects on world-class schedules. I look forward to seeing its earliest possible completion.

I am told that the Bangalore International Airport Company will start pre-project work from today itself, even before the private partner is identified. By spending Rs. 300 crore over the next four to five months in buying the land, levelling it, getting environment clearances, and other works, you will hasten the actual construction of the airport.

We should follow a similar approach in all infrastructure projects, irrespective of whether they are built by the public sector or the joint sector, to ensure that there are no time- and cost-overruns. By completing all the pre-project work, governments will ensure the chances of the final project being built even faster, since the private builder can then get on with the technical work of actually putting up the project.

Airports also represent a country's window to the world. Passengers form their first impressions about a nation from the state of its airports. They can be effectively used as symbols of national pride, if we pay sufficient attention to their quality and maintenance.

I am really proud of this pioneering idea of the State Government to construct the airport with private participation. This will be a living example of ideal Centre-State relationship. I urge other States to adopt such innovative steps in setting up infrastructure facilities for their economic growth and development.

With great pleasure I inaugurate work for the new Bangalore international airport project and wish all success for the project.

Thank you”.