How Bengaluru airport's brand-new T2 won over Foxconn

A team of senior executives from Foxconn led by Young Liu, CEO & chairman & 16 senior leaders of the company were in Bengaluru on March 3.

In a letter to Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai on March 6, Foxconn (Hon Hai Technology Group) expressed its keenness to set up an electronics manufacturing unit in Bengaluru as part of its ‘Project Elephant’.

The letter also hinted at why the Taiwanese multinational chose Bengaluru: the airport's brand-new glitzy, grandiose Terminal 2.

A team of senior executives from Foxconn led by Young Liu, CEO & chairman & 16 senior leaders of the company were in the city on March 3. Their visit began with a walkthrough of T2, followed by a detailed presentation by senior executives from Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL) on cargo infrastructure & facilities at the airport. They were accompanied by state IT-BT minister CN Ashwath Narayan.

Liu and his team were seemingly impressed by what they saw, particularly the cargo handling. “The efficiency of cargo handling at the airport does have a significant bearing on our operations and metrics, as we rely on air freight for our multiple products, to a considerable extent,” Liu wrote in his March 6 letter.

Gunjan Krishna, commissioner for industrial development and member of the delegation, told Moneycontrol: "Electronics goods logistics movement is mostly through airport/air cargo so we wanted to show the capabilities. The Foxconn team was impressed by the T2. In fact, turnaround time of any cargo to and from Karnataka at the airport is two hours and they were really happy".

On March 3, 300 acres of land were identified for Foxconn's manufacturing facility at the Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) industrial area, Doddaballapur in Devanahalli Taluk near the Bengaluru International Airport.

The electronics manufacturing unit was expected to create more than 1 lakh jobs in the state over the next ten years. On March 4, the company said that it had not entered into any binding, definitive agreements for new investments while on their trip. This is despite the company and the Karnataka government signing a Letter of Intent on March 3. It led to a major embarrassment for Bommai ahead of the assembly polls.

Urban mobility expert and co-founder of Yulu, RK Misra calls the Foxconn deal a classic example of how good infrastructure leads to great investments.

"T2 is already a winner, it helped win the Foxconn plant. World-class private infrastructure (airport) helped tide over poor public infrastructure in Bengaluru. Bengaluru has great weather, cosmopolitan culture, a young, vibrant workforce but it continues to suffer from poor infrastructure so manufacturing units which generate blue-collar jobs are now looking at other states. It's high time the state government sets things right," Misra said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Terminal 2 of the Bengaluru airport, which was built at a cost of around Rs 5,000 crore, on November 11 last year. According to BIAL, T2 offers a ‘walk in the garden’ experience, with passengers travelling through 10,000 square metres of green walls, hanging gardens, and outdoor gardens built with indigenous technology. It’s a tribute to Bengaluru’s ‘Garden City’ moniker. Located on the north-eastern side of terminal-1, T2 spans 2.5 lakh square meters in area and is equipped to handle 25 million passengers annually.