EGoM on airports to meet today

The empowered group of ministers (EGoM) will meet on Monday to finalise the modalities for awarding contracts for modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports to a successful bidder.

Among the options before the EGoM, asking GMR-Fraport to match the highest financial bid tops the list. In this scenario, in case the financial bid by GMR-Fraport is not the highest, it will have to offer a higher revenue share percentage. Sources said the government would form a group of bureaucrats or ministers to negotiate the deal with GMR-Fraport.

The EGoM may also consider allowing GMR-Fraport to get the airport it wants, based on its original financial bid.

"In this case, whatever has been offered by GMR-Fraport will be taken and it will not be asked to raise its bid to match the highest financial bid," said a civil aviation ministry official.

The sources also said that since only the GMR-Fraport consortium had passed the original technical evaluation stage, it would be allowed to choose the airport it wants.

But the government feels that this move could be challenged by the other bidders in court. Thus, the EGoM would also examine the legal options the government had to protect its stand. It was likely to seek legal opinion on the matter.

A meeting of the EGoM last week could not deal with the issues in detail as some of the key members of the group had to leave the meeting before it was concluded.

Monday's crucial meeting is expected to be attended by all its members. Headed by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, its members include Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, Law Minister HR Bharadwaj and Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel.

Government sources said the EGoM would subsequently ask the interministerial group to open and examine the financial bids submitted by the bidders.

The EGoM, which met last Tuesday, decided to give GMR-Fraport, the lone bidder cleared by the E Sreedharan-led group of technical experts, the option to choose between the Delhi and Mumbai airports.

The EGoM had also decided to lower the technical evaluation conditions to allow more players to get into the financial bidding stages. As a result, the bids of Reliance-ASA (Mexico), DS Construction-Munich Airport and GVK-South African Airport also qualified for financial evaluation.

The financial bids of these companies would be evaluated for awarding the contract for the airport GMR-Fraport consortium does not want to modernise.