BENGALURU: As Bengaluru's elite look skywards for a way out of the city's traffic congestion, 20 high-rise buildings, including 10 residential towers, have been given clearances to have helipads for commercial and personal use.
Bengaluru currently has only one operational helipad on a high-rise, atop ITC Royal Gardenia, while Mumbai has four, the most famous of these atop Mukesh Ambani's residence Antilia. Delhi has no operational helipads.
Golden Gate Residential at Yeshwanthpur, the city's tallest building with 49 floors, will soon have a helipad. Brigade EnterprisesBSE -1.62 % is in the process of opening its maiden helipad in the city atop its 32storey World Trade Centre at Malleshwaram. It plans to set up helipads on two of its residential projects as well. "Setting up helipads makes business sense as we have some premium clientele," said Roshin Mathew, president (engineering), Brigade Enterprises.
As Bengaluru gains height to accommodate the hordes of people streaming in from across the country, more helipads will become a necessity . As per the fire safety norms for residential buildings, it is compulsory for any building above 60m or 18 floors to have a helipad for emergency lifting. "Helipads should be built above the terrace of the building, with fire prevention system extended to the helipad area," said NU Erappa, Deputy Director (fire prevention), Karnataka Fire & Emergency Services.
According to Penta Consulting, an aviation consulting firm, Bengaluru is seeing an increase in the number of enquiries for setting up helipads as international corporate heads regularly charter whirlybirds to visit their Indian units.
"Helipads not only add value to the building but get right clientele too. Every five years the population of helicopters doubles and it needs landing space.
There is huge demand for charter services from government employees, corporate and business heads," said Subhash Bathe, director, Penta Consulting, which is currently working on four such projects.ITC Royal Gardenia's helipad service is a big hit with corporate leaders.
The service is offered to its Peacock suite guests, who can directly land on the heliport and enter the suite through a special elevator.
"We do not know how successful this business model will be, as take-off and landing time is equivalent to the time taken to reach the airport. Also, it costs over .
`10,000 to fly from the city to the airport," said Sushil Mantri, managing director of Mantri Developers. The company's 46 storeyed residential tower on Bannerghatta Road will boast of a helipad and a sky lounge-cumcoffee shop on the 41st floor.
The demand for helipads is also driven by emergency medical transfers. "Helicopters can be converted to air ambulances by replacing the seats with special equipment and medical facilities in a matter of 15 minutes.
But the service, named Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) is yet to take off ," said Captain Irshad Ahmad, flight operation instructor, Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
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