Fresh look likely at report on airports upgrade bids

Wants fresh evaluation of bids if required.

The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on airports privatisation has asked the inter-ministerial group (IMG) to take another look at the evaluation report of the technical bids for privatisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports.

The EGoM also gave the IMG the mandate to ask its global technical advisor "" Air Plan of Australia "" to undertake a fresh evaluation of the bids if required, according to civil aviation ministry officials.

As part of this, the IMG met today to decide on the future course of action and also the way to go ahead with the process. Government sources said the IMG has also been empowered to call meetings with the bidders for clarifications.

"The IMG can evaluate the bids and the report again if there is a need. During the process, the technical advisor will be asked to give all the details of the process taken to evaluate the bids. If there is a need, the advisor will be asked to change the process. However, the qualification conditions may not be changed," an official said.

As a result of the differences within the IMG, the EGoM, which met here on Monday, had decided to defer its decision on choosing the successful technical bids.

Gajendra Haldea, the Planning Commission's representative in the inter-ministerial group which met last week and gave its recommendations to the EGoM, submitted a dissent note calling for cancellation of all bids and fresh bidding. Otherwise, the note said, every bidder should qualify for the round of financial evaluation.

Haldea had said all shortlisted bidders, as approved by the EGoM, should qualify and that the technical evaluation of the consultant be discarded.

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

"The IMG will have to come out with a comprehensive report after analysing the various aspects of the bids. The role of IMG is to help the EGoM take a final decision," the official said.

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. Three "" the Bharti group, DLF and L&T-Pirmal "" later dropped out of the race.

The government had rejected Videocon's bid at the pre-bid evaluation stage itself.