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Our Bureau

New Delhi , Jan. 6

THE Government's attempt to modernise Delhi and Mumbai airports has received support from the Parliamentary Consultative Committee, which called for modernisation and restructuring of the two metro airports without any further delay.

Cutting across party lines, most members attending the meeting said that the process, which has been given the go-ahead by the Parliament, needed urgent attention.

Members also raised issues relating to safety and security in the air, including using of Instrument Landing System ( for helping aircraft land in foggy conditions. Besides, the issue of shortage of trained personnel specifically air traffic controllers, slow pace of infrastructure development, including those at the metro and non-metro airports was also taken up.

However, the CPI(M) called for the entire current exercise to be scrapped so as to ensure a minimum of credibility and transparency. Writing in the party's in-house journal, Mr Nilotpal Basu, MP, said that there is "solid ground" for the Government to cancel the entire bidding process given the explicit relationship of the consultants with the short-listed entities - Reliance and GMR.

"The implication of the short-listing is obvious. With the government's explicit stipulation that no consortium can get both the airports, each of the two successful bidders can get one airport each. This implies that the assets of two extremely profitable PSUs will go to them on the basis of a single bid," the article points out.

The bidding process started in February last year after appointment of a global advisor, Air Plan of Australia. In addition, ABN Amro was appointed as the financial advisor and Amarchand Mangaldas and Suresh A. Shroff and Co were appointed as legal advisors, the article added.

Further, it states that though the Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) discussed the draft bid documents on several occasions, it did not discuss the final bid documents. These were approved by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and provided to the bidders, the article said. Similarly, the request for quotation document was not discussed in the IMG but in the ministry.

The article claims that some members of the IMG did not have an opportunity to participate in the pre-bidding conferences with the bidders, despite a decision by the committee on infrastructure. The ministry had invited expressions of interest and 10 consortia had applied. The eligibility criteria used by the Government Review Committee did not seem to be well defined, the article alleges.

Asking for the scrapping of the on-going process, the article calls for taking up the alternative plan prepared by the AAI Employees Forum.

"If the alternative plan satisfies the requirements of the modernisation objective, it must be implemented. The government may also take cognisance of the parliamentary standing committee's proposal of constructing world-class airports in Mumbai and Delhi as green field projects. These two measures together may overcome the infrastructure constraint and ensure that the current phenomenal growth in the aviation sector is effectively taken care of," Mr Basu states.

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House panel calls for metro airports revamp without further delay — But CPI(M) wants process scrapped

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