EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE Posted online: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 at 0440 hours IST Updated: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 at 0509 hours IST
NEW DELHI, JANUARY 31: Staying on course to identify the private consortia for modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports, the Civil Aviation Ministry has decided to open the financial bids of the five selected bidders today.
According to the process agreed to by the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGOM) headed by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the bids will be opened by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the EGOM will be promptly informed of the outcome.
The revenue share for AAI is the sole criteria for selecting the best financial bid. The consortium which has set aside maximum revenue share for AAI will be chosen.
The top four bidders for Delhi and Mumbai have been selected in the technical round after the EGOM broadbased the competition by lowering the cut-off mark from 80 per cent to 50 per cent. This resulted in five of the six bidders making the cut for the financials with Essel’s Pan Paryatan-TAV (Turkish) being the only bidder failing to qualify.
GVK-Airport Company South Africa bid only for Mumbai while the rest bid for both the airports. GMR-Fraport (Frankfurt) is the only bid that qualified in the two earlier technical rounds crossing the 80 per cent benchmark.
Reliance-ASA Mexico made the cut in technical evaluation by advisors Airplan but was placed below 80 per cent by the panel of experts headed by Delhi Metro chief E Sreedharan.
EGOM finally went by Sreedharan’s evaluation and decided to bring down the cut-off. However, it further decided that GMR-Fraport should be given the opportunity to match the best financial bid. And, in case, GMR itself has the best financial bid in both the airports, then others will be asked to match it at the airport which GMR does not take.
While preparations were underway for opening of financial bids, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel met the agitating AAI unions. Under the banner of the AAI Joint Employees Forum, this conglomeration of AAI unions and associations threatened to go on strike if the bids were opened. As a measure of caution, the Ministry is also exploring options to invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act in case the employees go on strike affecting air operations.
Patel assured them that the Ministry will co-ordinate with the selected private consortia to absorb maximum employees. As it is, a minimum of 40 per cent employees have to be absorbed according to the bid conditions.
While this did not cut ice with the forum which is also contemplating legal action, the main concern is from Reliance. There is a fear that Reliance may go to court challenging the entire process if it gets out of the race tomorrow after the financials.
The consortium could question the EGOM’s move to lower the cut-off mark and go by the Sreedharan panel’s evaluation instead of Airplan, the appointed global technical advisor. However, the bid documents clearly state that EGOM can change any term or condition at any stage of the process.
NEW DELHI, JANUARY 31: Staying on course to identify the private consortia for modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports, the Civil Aviation Ministry has decided to open the financial bids of the five selected bidders today.
