On Friday, the government held a pre-application conference here for bidders for operations, maintenance and development of the Chennai and Lucknow airports. Officials from companies such as Sahara, VINCI, GVK, Fraport AG and Essel also attended the meeting, said a senior industry executive, on condition of anonymity.
Company sources confirmed Tata Realty and Infrastructure and Tata Projects bought request-for-qualification (RFQ) documents in a pre-bid conference for the privatisation of Chennai and Lucknow airports. "The two Tata companies have bought RFQ documents. They will study the terms and conditions and, if allowed to bid, will do so, subject to the terms and conditions being met," said a Tata Group spokesperson.
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GMR and Reliance Group declined to comment.
According to the qualification documents, the concessionaire would have to invest Rs 1,200 crore for upgrade of the Chennai airport. At the airport premises, a new domestic terminal and a parallel taxi track would be constructed, the main runway would be re-carpeted, the international terminal building would be modified, metro rail connectivity provided and a common user cargo terminal and multi-level car parking facility would be constructed.
The list of short-listed bidders would be announced on October 25. For the Lucknow airport, the concessionaire would have to invest Rs 500 crore through five years.
The investment includes expenses for re-carpeting the runway, expanding the terminal building and constructing a cargo terminal, three additional hangars, a boundary wall, a perimeter road, a new fire station, barracks for Central Industrial Security Force personnel and an administrative block. The list of short-listed bidders would be announced on October 28.
Earlier this year, the government had said for the airports at Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Guwahati, Jaipur and Ahmedabad, operations and maintenance would be carried out through public-private participation contracts.
To address concern privatisation of the six airports might result in higher charges for passengers, the rates to be levied after privatisation would be determined before awarding the projects. A senior official in the Ministry of Civil Aviation had told Business Standard, "If you are going for bidding, there has to be some certainty in tariff. The AERA (Airports Economic Regulatory Authority) will fix the tariff for five years, which will be reviewed thereafter, taking into account the capital requirement for expansion works for the next five years. Any price increase can be linked to the Wholesale Price Index so that it is certain what the charges would be once the private concessionaire takes over operations."