But, the BIA in Devanahalli would still be a project which will envy of most if not all the airports operating across the country.

Conceived in the early 1990’s, controversies, delays and dilly-dialling have been synonymous with the International Airport located about 30 kilometres from Bangalore City.The decision to have an International Airport was mooted following Bangalore’s unprecedented growth from a Pensioner’s Paradise to the Silicon Capital of India.

The existing HAL airport was considered to be inadequate to meet the growing demands and incompetent to keep up Bangalore new image.

 The project originally to be taken by a Tata-led consortium, was awarded to a consortium consisting of Siemens, Zurich Airport and Larsen & Toubro, after the Tata’s walked out of the project due to delays in clearance.
After much dilly-dialling, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was inked between the Karnataka Government and the Ministry of Civil Aviation for setting up the airport.

However, it wasn't until July 2005, that the construction commenced at the airport site with a deadline to complete the airport in 30 months time.

In between there were a few bickerings, first the resignation of IT Czar, Narayana Murthy from the chairmanship of the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) and then the remodelling of the airport following objections raised by the Ministry of Civil Aviation over airport’s design.

Finally, when all was through and as the airport successfully conducted it trails, first the basic trials followed by the advanced and the integrated trials, it ran into rough weather again. A couple of days after the airport did its flight trails on March 7 with two airlines touching down at the tarmac of the BIA, the Ministry of Civil Aviation conveyed to the promoters that it was not prepared to start commercial operations since the Air Traffic Control (ATC) facility was not ready.

The airport is dogged with other problems relating to road connectivity and its controversial concessional agreement with the Government of India, which states that the existing HAL Airport should be shut down for commercial operations once the BIA takes off.