Airport bids enter last lap

The Empowered Group of Ministers EGOM for the modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports has given its nod to broadbase the bid criteria f...

The Empowered Group of Ministers EGOM for the modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports has given its nod to broadbase the bid criteria for including more bidders by lowering the cut-off for technical qualification from 80 per cent to 50 per cent.

As a result, the top four bidders for both Delhi and Mumbai are in with a chance. But if GMR-Fraport 8212; the lone bidder to have qualified in two rounds of technical evaluation 8212; also has the best financial bid in both the airports, other bidders will have to match it.

This condition also works in the reverse where GMR-Fraport gets an opportunity to match the best financial bid. This will come into play only if other bidders provide an option better than GMR-Fraport. The sole determining criteria for the financial bid is which consortium allocates maximum revenue share to Airports Authority of India.

This complicated solution was elaborated in the minutes of the EGOM8217;s deliberations that were finalised today.

The bids are likely to be opened on Friday in the presence of all technically-qualified bidders. Essel8217;s Pan Paryatan-TAV Turkey consortium is the sole bidder left out of the process for it has scored below 50 per cent in both the evaluations carried out by Airplan and the Sreedharan panel.

The EGOM has exercised its right to change any condition in the bidding document at any stage in trying to find a solution to this issue which ran into controversy after the panel of experts headed by Delhi Metro Chief E Sreedharan lowered Reliance8217;s score in the technical evaluation by four marks.

GMR-Fraport and Reliance-ASA Mexico were the two bids to have originally made the cut in Airplan8217;s technical evaluation. The Sreedharan panel did not alter the marks much and the ranking order remained the same. But given the Prime Minister8217;s directive that EGOM must find a way out to ensure the process is not scrapped, this solution was worked out.