Speaking to the media here on Tuesday, he said certain problems within the Tata-Raytheon-Changi consortium were responsible for the current impasse. Revealing the proceeds of a meeting held between him and Ratan Tata recently, Ananth Kumar said the one and half hour meeting discussed a wide range of issues. Tata's partners are not as interested in the project as they were at the start due to the five year delay since the signing of the MoU.

Ananth Kumar further said that he has had two discussion with the Karnataka Chief Minister J H Patel on the issue and was willing to offer an assistance in a quick resolution to the current delay.

The four outstanding issues to be handled by the re-feasibility study include landing and parking charges, tariff sharing, integrated aerospace management and extent of land to be allotted to the consortium.

Commenting on the delay in clearance of the Tata Airline project, Ananth Kumar said that domestic air traffic has slumped by 2.7 per cent compared to last year's Planning Commission projection of a 5 per cent increase. According to him, the 82 aircraft being operated by the domestic carriers have to operated on a 66 per cent load factor to break even and it will be very difficult for a new airline to cope with the existing conditions.

The Tata Airline issue will be put before the FIPB on July 22 and a decision will be taken in this matter, he added.

Revealing the government's plan to set up five new international airports shortly, Ananth Kumar said discussion were already underway with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandra Babu Naidu for an airport at Hyderabad. The Gujarat government has also shown interest in an international airport at Ahmedabad to share some traffic with the Mumbai airport. Similar airport and Guwahati and Amritsar were also on the cards, he added.