“We had our final meeting today,” said G S Gill, vice-chairman and managing director of CIDCO. “We have found Louis Berger to have the lowest bid. I will now have to go to the Board of CIDCO before the consultant is finally picked.”

The other three bidders to design the masterplan for the city’s second airport, set to to sprawl over 2,000 hectares of land, are Scott Wilson of the UK, Mott McDonald from Mumbai and Maunsell of Singapore.

Once the consultant is finalised and awarded the contract, the firm will prepare a Detailed Project Report by mid-2008 to meet the target of beginning at least partial operations by 2012. For, although the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) in Mumbai is undergoing an overhaul undertaken by the Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd (MIAL), it is expected that this airport will reach saturation point — over 40 million passengers per annum — by 2013. That is the reason the proposed second airport for the country’s financial capital is of immense significance.

The airport will be built through a public-private partnership mechanism. Senior officials said the state government may seek foreign financial aid for the Viability Gap Funding. Work is already underway to obtain environmental clearances and to acquire the balance land, about 500 hectares, spread across seven or eight villages.