When PS Nair took over as the director of Delhi Airport in 2002, he didn’t think his duties would involve the demolition of farm houses.The issue was the following. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) owned a lot of prime land and in the time-honoured Delhi tradition of land grabbing, a group of people had encroached upon a 21 acre plot in Vasant Kunj and built farm houses there. Strangely, nobody in AAI had acted to retake possession. When Nair landed up at the plot one morning, with bulldozers and officials in tow, he understood why.One of the owners was the grandson of a former president of India. His influence was such that the local police station zealously supported the encroachers. The word of the eviction attempt had leaked, and the encroachers put up a dharna even as, recalls Nair, the former president’s grandson arrived in a long black Mercedes Benz car with a licensed gun prominently displayed in a holster attached to his belt. The cops raised technicalities and shooed the AAI team away.Nair had some experience dealing with encroachers as director of Mumbai airport, but this was different. His phone at home would ring in the mornings, just as his children left for school, and an anonymous caller would simply say he knew which school Nair’s children attended.“The thing about working in government is that if you don’t have any skeletons in your closet, you can take a stand. And if your case is genuine, you will be able to find allies within the system,” says Nair.Allies and an element of surprise were going to be key. He found a joint commissioner of police (traffic), who agreed to let bulldozers pass at short notice. He also found an officer in charge of the reserve battalions of the Delhi Police based in Kingsway Camp, who agreed to support his mission, provided the lieutenant governor wouldn’t intervene. Only one person could ensure that, he was told the home secretary. So Nair went to the then home secretary N Gopalaswami, who readily agreed to support him.One day, Nair launched the demolition operation with the benefit of surprise. The armed cops of the reserve battalion reached before the local cops could intervene. As expected, queries came from the LG’s office, making the reserve police battalion a bit jittery. The owners and accomplices too rushed to the scene, raising tensions.Nair called the home secretary, who stepped out of the stage at an event, to issue directions. Thereon the reserve police acted decisively and the bungalows were demolished swiftly, chunks of concrete plunging into the swimming pools in the front yards.Now, the Indian Aviation Academy, a joint training facility for AAI, Directorate General for Civil Aviation and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, is located on this plot, worth hundreds of crores of rupees. Years later, Nair would come back to the Delhi airport to lead the commissioning of T3, the showpiece terminal that demonstrated India could build excellent public infrastructure. This was around the same time E Sreedharan was building the Delhi Metro, making the same point.Both were government officers who thrived under a different structure and the autonomy and agency that came with it — a special purpose vehicle in the case of Sreedharan and a public-private partnership in the case of Nair.Nair, 71, is now a board member and advisor at various GMR companies. He stepped down in June as the CEO of GMR Airports, which operates the Delhi and Hyderabad airports in India and the Mactan-Cebu International Airport in Philippines, handling 100 million passengers in a year.He’s handing over responsibilities after a long and remarkable, if mostly unsung, crossover career in India’s aviation sector spanning nearly four decades — first at the AAI, where over 25 years he rose to become a full-time board member, and later as a top official at GMR, which won the bid to transform Delhi airport and build the new Hyderabad airport. At AAI, he served as director of Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram and Delhi airports.“I needed someone to fix the operations at Delhi airport. I asked for the best officer. The name that came most recommended was Mr Nair’s,” says Shahnawaz Hussain, the then civil aviation minister, who handpicked him as the director of Delhi airport in 2002.After 9/11, there were intelligence inputs that the Delhi airport could be targeted. To beef up security, operations needed to be streamlined. “We brought in Nair saab and he did excellent work. He was strict and he worked hard. He’s like Sreedharan. I believed in giving my officers a free hand and he delivered,” says Hussain.What makes Nair’s career stand out is the way it’s intertwined with India’s airport privatisation process.India’s airports used to be owned and operated by the state-run AAI, and they were seen to be among the worst in the world. When the second Vajpayee government (1999-2004) decided to privatise airports — transform Delhi and Mumbai and build new ones in Bengaluru and Hyderabad as first steps — Nair headed AAI’s Key Infrastructure Division, which was the interface between the government and the AAI in implementing the decision.Nair quit AAI in 2006, four years shy of retirement, and joined GMR, which won the privatisation bids for Delhi and Hyderabad airports under the public-private partnership model. At GMR, he served as the CEO of Hyderabad airport during its commissioning — a heart-stopping moment when all operations shifted at once from the old airport to the new one. He later served as the CEO of the Delhi airport during the commissioning of the T3 international terminal, a challenging project that had to be ready in time for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. He did it without a glitch. That was his crowning glory.The success of airport privatisation, in the execution of which Nair played key roles at important junctures from both sides of the public-private divide, had a profound effect not only on the decision to continue privatising airports but on the perception of privatisation itself in the country. They were also among the first truly world-class infrastructure assets that came up in the country.So what is the difference between working in the public sector and the private sector? “In government, your hands are tied, and yet results are expected. In the private sector, results are expected, but you are enabled and empowered,” says Nair.He also says that government organisations are hamstrung by check and balances that were meant to prevent malfeasance. “Government-managed companies tend to suffer from a 4C syndrome — fear of Central Vigilance Commission , Comptroller and Auditor General, Central Bureau of Investigation and courts. This impedes faster decision making.”Nair’s success with airports underscores the kind of management talent that lies encumbered in state institutions and public sector companies, the ones that can soar with more agency and empowerment. India built the Delhi Metro and the modern Delhi Airport with home-grown public service officers leading the charge. ..