EGoM seeks more info on airport bids

Contract deadline stays January 31, says Praful Patel.

The meeting of the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on privatisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports ended inconclusive today.

The group, which took up the report of the committee of secretaries, decided to ask for more details from the E Sreedharan panel, including its method of evaluating the bid and why it examined only the Reliance-ASA bid.

"The meeting on the matter will be held again, once the clarifications are answered," said Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel. Patel, however, said the government would stick to the January 31 deadline for awarding of contracts.

Insiders say that, at the EGoM meeting, two members said the group should go ahead with the recommendations of the Sreedharan panel while another two opposed the idea.

The committee of secretaries, headed by Cabinet Secretary BK Chaturvedi, had sided with the Sreedharan panel recommendations on downgrading the Reliance-ASA bid and also suggested that either fresh bids be invited or the current process be scrapped altogether.

The three-member panel headed by Delhi Metro Corporation Managing Director E Sreedharan had recommended that the Reliance-ASA consortium's bid be downgraded, leaving only one qualified bidder (GMR-Fraport) for the two airports.

According to the Sreedharan panel, GMR-Fraport alone has made the cut by scoring over 80 points out of 100 in the technical evaluation.

Since that leaves only one eligible bidder and both airports cannot be given to the same party, the committee of secretaries has suggested that the other five short-listed bidders be asked to submit fresh bids.

The committee has suggested that the EGoM may consider fresh bids by all those who had made it to this stage after screening of their expressions of interest. This will require GMR-Fraport, too, to bid again. Or, the process can start all over again from the stage of request for proposal.

Planning Commission and the Airports Authority of India, too, are in favour of fresh bids while the finance ministry has advocated scrapping the process, rather than calling of fresh bids.

At present, there are six bidders in the fray: Reliance-ASA, GMR-Fraport, DS Construction-Munich, GVK-South African Airport, Essel-TAV and a Sterlite-led consortium.

According to sources, if fresh bids are invited from every consortium that came through the screening of EoIs, then Bharti Enterprises and a Piramal-led consortium, which dropped out after the screening, can also come into the picture.

If the process goes back to the request for proposal stage, the project is likely to be delayed by at least a year. The current process began about 18 months ago.