Meet on airport upgrade bids soon

The civil aviation ministry will soon call a meeting of bidders of the Delhi and Mumbai to discuss the technical details of their bids.

This comes close on the heels of the technical advisor to the government on the airport bid evaluation, Air Plan, submitting its report to the government.

According to government sources, the report would be reviewed by a group of officials in a couple of days, after which it would be placed before the group of ministers (GoM) headed by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

"The GoM, based on the report of the consultant, will decide on short listing of bidders," said a civil aviation ministry official adding that the GoM will take the decision by the end of November, after which the financial bids of the short-listed companies would be evaluated by the government.

The civil aviation ministry expects to finalise the bidder and award the airport contract by the end of December 2005.

"The evaluation of financial bids will take about three to four weeks to conclude," the official said.

The development of the airport project will be done in two phases with the first phase of the for the Delhi airport expected to be completed by 2009.