Airport Director
Airport Authority of India
Chennai Saturday, August 03, 2013
Dear Sir

Re: AAI Chennai – Arrivals/ Departure concourse – control barriers to keep traffic moving: ticketing with 5-minute duration and parking penalty when exceeded at exit of Rs 60 / 100

The new Arrivals/ Departures concourse at Chennai is protected by ticket barriers. Such barriers are not installed or seen at any airport in the whole of India or indeed the world (am just back from Bangkok & Yangon and London/ Belfast and Dubai). What is so backward about Chennai that AAI cannot control traffic flows at this messy entrance and pretty badly maintained front area of this new airport?

I represent UK-related business in this city and would like to comment that it is a shame that AAI Chennai has to have such a ridiculous system in place. Even if it is to control security for terrorist activities, this is not the way to do it!

Passengers arriving by taxis are harassed by drivers to pay parking charges of Rs 60- at least on basis they may be delayed by jams leaving at exit gates. All of us also know it takes a few minutes getting out of cars/ taxis and in taking out luggage. For older people, it can take longer – not sure what wisdom was used by AAI in estimating 5-minutes for dropping and exiting what are poorly designed approaches and gates (some of your people should inspect these)

We may also add that this procedure is a bit rich for a major state-of-the-art institution with ISO 9001 certification which over-ran cost and scheduling way beyond 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 weeks, 5 months……

We would urge AAI Chennai to have these ticketing barriers removed at an early date and meet the standards normal for airports the world over

Yours faithfully

Christie Cherian
Chairman
British Business Group Chennai Trust

The Chairman’s Annual Report can be found below and also be downloaded here:

2nd National Conference

The year started with BBG Chennai bidding at Delhi with other BBGs to host the 2nd National BBG Conference at Chennai. With huge support from many members, 13 of whom sponsored bulk of finance to make event a resounding success. All our Committee as well as the solid backing / support from Mike Nithavrianakis, the Deputy High Commissioner and all his staff at BDHC/ Cottingley. A Sub-Committee headed by Ravi Kumar produced an excellent Conference Report which was distributed to all BBGs and is a useful presentation document

Membership/ New members

We had 85 members last year and now have 134, an increase of 57% (we fell short of target of 150, considering we lost 12 members from last year, level still reasonable) Getting new members is a priority area – all our Committee work to bring new members and we are grateful to Jamie Cribb and his colleagues in UKTI / BDHC in identifying new arrivals.

Monthly Meetings / Committee sittings

Other than major Conference Meeting in September 2012, 13 regular meetings and networking sessions were held.

Your hard-working Committee met more than twice monthly to make Conference happen/ get Report done/ handle issues of UKTI – UKIBC trade initiative actions / UK trade mission. We planned a trip to Mysore which did not happen and alas no cricket match was played with BDHC

Charitable Donations

In pursuit of our charity objectives, BBG Chennai made donations to Hand in Hand India and to Frontier Lifeline Hospital and two smaller donations. The Hand in hand India donation spurred TCS to take action and contribute water filters for 10 centres (under delivery)

Web-site Refresh/ launch

A small Sub-Committee under Peter Spackman worked with our Member, Vikas Chawla (of Social Beat) to completely refresh and rehash the web-site using the National Conference Logo / colours with sliding picture gallery/the Conference film “Old Madras, Chennai Today” as well as regular updated news. Our submission is that all members take an active interest in the web-site and make regular relevant contributions and suggestions to keep it interesting and active

Other New BBGs/ British Chambers of Commerce

We supported Gerry Duggan, our member as he moved to Hyderabad earlier this year with advice and assistance to get BBG Hyderabad launched in April 13 (growing slowly with 30 members)

We have also instigated conveners/ steering team in Bangalore to work into a BBG Bangalore – it took them 3 months and BBG Bangalore formally launched on 5th July 13 (15 members, forming Committee)

We have been in contact with BDHC, Kolkata to see if we can push for a BBG in that city too – not happened yet

The Chairman during a visit to Yangon in Myanmar attended the 2nd meeting of BBG Yangon in May. He has also attended meetings with the British Chamber of Commerce Thailand, Bangkok

Other Activities with BDHC / UKTI

From the outset, BBG Chennai have worked closely with both BDHC and with UKTI – useful regular meeting have taken place. Some of the following have resulted in connections / activity:

Meeting with EU commercial attaches visiting city
London Chamber of C&I visit
Lord Mayor of London visit
UK Health Minister visit
Healthcare delegation
Basildon Council CEO – Bala Mahendran
Chairman addressed UKTI Conference in April 12

David Cameron’s (UK PM) call for increased trade between UK & India – Chennai’s UK business mission

This raised a whole wade of activity during Jan / Feb 2013 including visits by UKTI London and UKIBC, London. A major meeting was held in Delhi and the UK Government committed a budget of Pds 8 million over 5 years in support. UKIBC India has now established and will have new British Business Centres in Gurgoan / Delhi /Mumbai

For our part, BBG Chennai decided to make an independent foray taking a trade/ business delegation into the UK 24/28 June 13. This took place with 13 members participating at opening seminar at UKTI, London. Break-out teams went to Bristol / Belfast and Basildon. Though not any big splash, we achieved modest take-aways with 2 or 3 delegations coming here/ 3 to 4 proposals being worked and individual members getting business done. We plan this to be an annual exercise

BBG Committee

Serving on Committees on voluntary basis can never be everyone’s cup-of-tea. Most times, thankless activity requiring precious time and heavy commitment. But one comes across dedicated supporting members and over time one develops strong friendships in contributing and doing something useful and different from just daily work. This is what we have found in the BBG Committee with all members responding positively whenever calls have been made. We record our appreciation to our Patron and to BDHC/UKTI friends as also to all the Committee members and others who have helped make this very hectic year, a successful one

Christie Cherian
BBG Chennai Trust

The Conveners / Steering Committee have been hard at work to get BBG Bangalore formed and in getting together the Governing Committee. The final meeting took place on 12th June 2013 with Christie Cherian in the chair getting the Steering Committee passing charge to the new President, Marc Drew and his Committee BBG-B will be launched in a grand event during the visit of Sir James Bevan, British High Commissioner on 5th July

Our Trade & Business Delegation is now ready with 15 of our members and 3 from Bangalore (to be joined by member’s UK company reps). Jamie Cribb Head of UKTI has kindly arranged with London to provide the venue for the Opening event on 24th June. The next day, Mission moves to Bristol to cover businesses in there arranged by The Converging World. On 26th June small break-out team travels to Belfast. Basildon Council have invited delegates to visit their companies on 27th June and attend a reception hosted by local business group. During the week, all members also attend their own business activities and will gather at St James’s on Friday, 28th June for a warp-up reception at The Old Star. More updates shall follow after the visit.

During visit to Myanmar, the Chairman of BBG Chennai was able to attend the 2nd meeting of the BBG just started there. The steering member is Tony Picon of Colliers. A strong group of 35+ met at the British Club in the aptly named “Irrawaddy Arms”. Andrew Rickards CEO of the well-established Yoma Strategic Holdings presented his group as a conglomerate in the country with long-term objectives and provided some less-known insights into this newly opening up country Tina Singhsacha, Chief Rep of StanChart sponsored the evening and spoke of her bank’s long association since 1863 with old Burma

The 16th May 2013 Monthly meeting had our member, Petrofac’s General Manager, Mr KRSR Krishna presenting his Group’s very impressive growth as also the phenomenal rise of his Chennai operations delivering services and staff to several group locations. Petrofac has over 1100 staff in Chennai of 16,500 internationally. Petrofac is UK’s 5th most admired companies (for its capacity to innovate /use of corporate assets/ability to attract & retain top talent).

The Chairman updated members on Chennai’s planned Trade Mission to UK 24-28 June, 2013 as also on membership development. Mr P M Belliappa then introduced the Guest Speaker, Vikram Kapur IAS the Principal Secretary & Commissioner of the Corporation of Chennai who has been in Chennai over 25 years. He finds it a very “live-able” city despite it’s own huge expansion in the past two decades.

Mr Kapur presented Chennai as the oldest city corporation (some 370 years) and the 4th largest in the country. He set out the extensive and complicated matrix of it’s operations with 25,000 employees and 200 elected officials. In it’s current development it has become a major industrial hub and a centre for IT & ITES services. It also houses huge BPOs for banking and insurance industries. In another aspect, Chennai is a huge educational centre of specialisations and quality. Again it has grown it’s healthcare industry and receives the largest numbers of foreign patients in India.

In his presentation Mr Kapur showed some of the plans for re-designing many of our streets with pavement innovations and spaces for hawkers / vendors. Larger roads are to be re-engineered to include parking and spaces for electric junction-boxes and other facilities. His presentation concluded with a unique educational program for teaching English to young children using services of teams of volunteers in classrooms provided by the Corporation. The members were most grateful to the Commissioner for providing them with such an interesting story on the city’s civic body.

Mr Kapur has been kind enough to send a copy of his presentation on a pen-drive to BBG: any members interested may please contact Ms Latha at BBG’s Offices for a copy

The Chairman attended a lively Networking Reception of BCCT and met some of it’s 620 members in the Up & Above Bar of Okura Prestige, Wireless Road on 25th April 2013. BCCT have been in Thailand since 1946 and work closely with all the Thai Chambers of Commerce and represent members views and requests to Government and civic bodies.

They hold over 100 events annually and relationships with UK remain strong having been built up over 200 years. Christie Cherian met BCCT’s Executive Director, Greg Wadkins and the Vice-Chairman, Simon Mathews.