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Will it get off the ground?

The procedure adopted by the Government of India and its agencies dealing with the modernisation and privatisation of airports has opened a Pandora's box. The decision to open at least four bids for the Delhi and Mumbai airports, when just one of the shortlisted bidders had been found to be qualified, is most likely to be challenged in court. It is unfortunate that a well-intentioned project that should ultimately provide the national and commercial capitals of India with world-class, modern airports seems to be stalling on the taxiway. An immediate effect of the decision of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) to open the bids and award the Delhi project to the GMR-Fraport and Mumbai to the GVK-South African Airports combine is the nationwide strike by employees of the Airports Authority of India (AAI). An even more serious consequence may be the loss of credibility of the entire process of bidding and award of such mega projects in the infrastructure sector. Upgrading and modernising the international airports in the country is a task that brooks no delay. If Delhi and Mumbai figure at the top of the list, Kolkata and Chennai are waiting in the wings for major upgradation to cope with the growing traffic. If this process flounders, it is bound to impede the whole exercise of modernising major airports.

The process of inviting bids, putting them through a pre-qualifying selection round, and then shortlisting them before opening the financial bids has been going on for nine months. A Committee of Secretaries, a Government Review Committee, the EGoM and, finally, an experts committee were all involved in this exercise that has turned out to be quite messy. The Sreedharan panel of experts at the final stage of the evaluation process made it clear that only GMR-Fraport qualified for bidding, going by the norms and the `Request for Proposal' framework. The panel specifically noted that the Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance group's bid was wrongly valued by the Evaluation Committee to enable it to qualify for one of the airports. Hence the decision to open four bids and award the airport projects to two of them. The AAI employees' union submitted an alternative proposal to take up the projects through the joint venture route, but the Civil Aviation Ministry did not find it feasible. It may be open to debate whether the development and modernisation of airports can, and should, invariably be done through the public sector, given its resource, manpower and technical constraints; yet, clearly, the AAI employees need to be assured that their jobs will be protected whatever the agency involved. The Delhi and Mumbai projects alone call for an investment of Rs.5,200 crore. More important, India needs to move ahead and build modern, world-class airports and focus on the development of critical infrastructure in all areas. It remains to be seen how the Centre, paricularly the Civil Aviation Ministry, handles the fallout of its decision and takes the modernisation process forward.

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