Mittal flays airport privatisation policy

Sunil Mittal of the Bharti Group today criticised the government's strategy for privatisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports.

The head of the company, which is in the race for the two airports, said that any infrastructure project should give adequate credit to a bidder for creating a world class project and not on how much the bidder contributes to the exchequer.

Speaking on the sidelines of the CII National Conference, Mittal said in its present form, the policy was too much in favour of the highest bidder.

He also broached the issue with Finance Minister P Chidambaram who responded by saying that there was a need to create world class airports which could absorb the traffic requirements over the next 30-40 years.

"I doubt if H1 will be the final criteria. It may be one of the criteria, while the others were non-monetary. It is good not to have modest airports with modest revenues but world class airports with adequate revenue share," the minister said.

Officials in the finance ministry, however, said the bidder for the two airports should clearly indicate the revenue streams that are expected as also the user charges since the government was providing a viability gap assistance.

On the spectrum allocation controversy, Mittal said most telecom operators were in a position to pay an entry fee for spectrum allocation, as suggested by Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata but indicated that it was not the most viable option and he was not in favour of it.

"There is the Prime Minister's Relief Fund. If someone wants to donate money, he can do it there," Mittal said.

best Telecom CEO award for Mittal

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Bharti Enterprises Chairman and Group Managing Director Sunil Mittal has been chosen the best Asian Telecom CEO while Bharti Tele-ventures was adjudged the Best GSM Carrier in Asia and the best Indian carrier at the Telecom Asia Awards 2005.

Bharti is the only Indian company to figure in the merit list at Telecom Asia 2005, a company release said.