Airport revamp hits airpocket

Panel of secretaries to review privatisation of Delhi, Mumbai airports.

The government today decided to review the privatisation process of the Delhi and Mumbai airports. This can delay the project to modernise the two airports.

The government also extended by at least 15 days the deadline for handing over the two airports to private developers.

According to the original plan, the privatisation process was to be completed by December 31, 2005.

Aimed at reaching a consensus on the controversial process, an empowered group of ministers (EGoM), which met here, decided to form a committee of secretaries headed by the Cabinet secretary to review the whole process.

The committee of secretaries has been given 15 days to come out with its recommendations. The committee will take a look at the procedure adopted by the civil aviation ministry in finalising bids.

"The selection criteria will not be changed. The committee will give its recommendations in two weeks on action needed to be taken," said Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel after an hour-long meeting of the EGoM.

This will mean that the committee will go into the details of bidding and bid conditions adopted by the government's technical adviser.

In addition, it may suggest changes in the privatisation process.

This move by the government comes at a time when private players in the fray and the Left parties have alleged irregularities in selecting bidders for the technical evaluation stage.

Government sources said the EGoM had taken this stand as the an inter-ministerial group (IMG), set up to assist the EGoM in shortlisting bidders, stood divided on the selection process.

The EGoM has asked the IMG to take a fresh look at the technical evaluation report of bids submitted on December 5. The EGoM has also give the IMG the mandate to ask the global technical adviser to the project, Air Plan of Australia, to evaluate the bids again, if required.

The sources, however, pointed out that there was no consensus in the report submitted by the IMG today to the EGoM.

"Some of the IMG members have given a dissent note on the report of the technical adviser. We are presenting the whole report to the EGoM to take a final view," said an official.

While some members of the IMG wanted to go with the technical adviser's report, others felt that the report needed to be reworked.

Some have even questioned the rankings given to the technical bids of the six short-listed consortia, saying the consultant had adopted an approach different to those indicated in the bid documents.

Earlier in the day, Left leaders met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, demanding that the airport privatisation project be scrapped. Singh assured them that the government would look into the issue, said CPI(M) MP Nilotpal Basu.

According to government sources, the prime minister has assured the Left leaders that there are no irregularities in the whole process.

The civil aviation ministry has shortlisted six consortia "" those led by Reliance, the Sterlite group, GMR, GVK, the Essel group and DS Construction "" for technical evaluation.

Originally, nine consortia had shown interest in the project. But the Bharti group, DLF and L&T-Pirmal dropped out of the race later. The government had rejected Videocon's bid at the pre-bid evaluation stage itself.

---

MOVING TARGET

(Deadline for handing over airports to private developers)

Original plan: October 2005

Revision in October: November 2005

Revision in November: December 31, 2005

Revision on December 21: January 15, 2006