Airport revamp: Course sticky, PM says stay on

Patel sought directions after the Sreedharan panel marked Reliance below the benchmark 80 per cent, bringing it down to around 76 per cent.

Despite the re-evaluation by the Sreedharan panel, Reliance retains second spot. Moreover, the panel has not evaluated any of the other bids which still leaves the question open whether the rest of evaluation is accurate by the panel’s ‘‘strict’’ standards.

The issue was discussed today between the Prime Minister, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who heads the EGOM, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Patel.

The PM took a broader view and asked the EGOM to resolve all differences and ensure the process is not scrapped. Following this, it was decided that the EGOM will meet on Thursday to take a final decision as officials in respective ministries got busy exploring options on taking the process forward.

The problem, sources said, is that the Sreedharan panel has evaluated only the Reliance bid on the grounds that doubts had been raised on this particular application. While bringing down the marks, the panel attached a rider saying that marks in five or six subjective criteria had been slightly altered. The Committee of Secretaries headed by Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi has endorsed this report and recommended the same to the EGOM. This leaves just GMR-Fraport in the fray and since one bidder cannot be given both airports, the EGOM will have to take a decision on whether it wants to go with the Sreedharan panel or not.

It’s learnt that the panel mooted the idea of a special purposes vehicle with majority holding by Airports Authority of India for the airport which does not get a consortium. The SPV can later identify a private partner.

Sources, however, said this was shot down today in informal interactions between ministers represented in the EGOM.The Civil Aviation Ministry is backing the move that EGOM should endorse technical advisor Airplan’s evaluation as the Sreedharan panel has not differed significantly in the allotment of marks. This would bring Reliance back into contention.

The other option, the Ministry feels can the EGOM can explore is to examine the top three bids for both Delhi and Mumbai airports. This will bring GVK in contention for Mumbai and DS Construction-Munich airport bid for Delhi. But that would mean the 80 per cent benchmark will no longer apply.

However, this option raises legal questions on which the EGOM will need to deliberate.

In the committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary, the Planning Commission continued to object, while Finance, Law and Civil Aviation ministries felt that the process must not be delayed or scrapped due to differences over 4-5 marks in what are recognised as subjective criteria.