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Calcutta airport might overshoot its third modernisation deadline because of a work-to-rule agitation that has taken 80 engineers off the overtime roster, delaying the project by up to a day with each missed shift.
The 80 engineers of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) stopped doing overtime on December 19 to protest alleged discrimination in promotions and perks, leaving contractual workers to often complete unfinished work without supervision.
Sources said work on the air-conditioning ducts, sprinkler systems, flooring, walkalators and escalators in the integrated terminal were already running much beyond schedule. A meeting last Monday to break the impasse ended with the engineers refusing to work beyond their stipulated duty hours of 9.30am to 5.30pm despite the threat of disciplinary action.
“Till mid-December, 87 per cent of the project had been completed with the progress of work estimated at 3 to 4 per cent a month. The target for completion of construction by March was fixed on the basis of this calculation. It now appears that only 2 to 2.5 per cent work will be done in December,” said an official involved in the project.
The start of the work-to-rule programme — it is a common form of agitation in industry across the developed world — coincided with Mamata Banerjee’s announcement that a new-look airport would be ready to greet fliers by March. The same day, AAI chairman V.N. Agrawal said various airlines would be able to start operations from the integrated terminal in June.
Airport director B.P. Sharma claimed the shortage of engineers in the overtime shifts hadn’t affected the project much. “We have taken contingency measures to counter the agitation and the project will be completed within the deadline,” he said.
Sources said a request to the AAI to send engineers from Delhi to make up for the shortage was declined. “They refused to go to Calcutta,” a senior AAI official said over phone from Delhi.
The original deadline for the Rs 2,600-crore integrated terminal project was last August. It was later extended to December and revised for the second time to March 2012.
P.D. Naphade, the branch secretary of the city unit of the International Airports Authority of India Officers’ Association, said the work-to-rule programme had definitely slowed down the progress of the modernisation project. “But we can’t help it. Our demands have been ignored for 16 years,” he told Metro.
The engineers are demanding promotions and perks on a par with officers of the erstwhile National Airports Authority of India, which became the AAI after merging with the International Airports Authority of India in 1995.
Since the agitation started, there have been several instances of shoddy work by contracted workers during shifts without proper AAI supervision. “Any such work has to be redone the next day, which is a waste of resources. Meetings scheduled for the evening to draw up plans for the next day are being postponed till morning because the engineers leave at 5.30pm,” an official said.
On Monday, the AAI told the general managers and deputy general managers that they would be accountable for a third missed deadline.
Delhi airport’s modernisation project with a budget of Rs 12,700 crore was completed well before the deadline, in 37 months. Mumbai airport’s modernisation project with a 2012 deadline is on schedule, officials said.
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