Threat of Sadak Bandh !

 The threat of a Sadak Bandh has been renewed. We are told that, to start with,  on 21st of this month the Kurnool Highway will be barricaded by human beings preventing all movement and paralyzing the area.  The Bandh organizers believe that it will have a salutary effect and will ensure that the Telengana issue will be solved with that.

In the Northeast last year, the agitators there blockaded the lifeline to Manipur for 3 months or so.  They thought that the Government of India will prostrate before the agitators and beg them to lift the blockade for which benevolent act of theirs, the Government of India will concede all their demands, and in an act of penitence would promise to never ignore their demands however silly , untenable, and irrational they might be.  Nothing of the sort happened and all the parties found some face-saving formula and called it quits.

The Kurnool Highway Bandh is supposed to plunge into chaos  the air travelers flowing into the Shamshabad Airport from all corners of India and the world.  The airport is expected to be virtually shut down as nobody will be permitted to enter or exit that facility.  After all airports being shut down is nothing new.  Periodically poor visibility, cyclones, floods, pilots’ strikes cotrollers’ strikes  etc make airports non operational. 

 If Shamshabad is closed, then the planes could be diverted to Begumpet which can receive all the flight and ensure their departure with full passenger loads.  What is required is the willingness of the powers that be to find the alternative