Centre grounds Krishna’s dream airport project

Karnataka's dream project of a state-of-the-art international airport in Bangalore received a setback this week with the Finance Ministry ra...

Karnataka’s dream project of a state-of-the-art international airport in Bangalore received a setback this week with the Finance Ministry raising objections in the concessional clauses of the agreement to be signed with private players.

It is understood that the Finance Ministry has asked the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MCA) to rework on this aspect of the agreement and come up with a model concessional framework that will apply to other such private-run airport projects queued up for approval. First among what are labelled as the greenfield airports, this project is to come up at Devanahalli near Bangalore. The state has been pressing for the Centre’s clearance before the beginning of the next financial year.

In fact, Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna had gone on record after his meeting with Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee earlier this month that the project will be cleared by March 15. This was followed by the Government’s decision to introduce a Bill seeking amendments in the Airports Authority of India Act during the current session of Parliament, which seeks to make greenfield airports independent of AAI control.

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Despite these positive indications, this project seems to have been caught in the bureaucratic maze. The Finance Ministry, sources said, has objections in the clauses that list out concessions and compensation to one party in case the other fails to live up to its commitment.

The Finance Ministry apparently wants the MCA to prepare a model framework of concession so the Government does not end up having different terms and conditions in every airport that follows Bangalore.

This apart, sources said, the issue of concessional clauses had been brought up by a Finance Ministry official during a meeting on the subject at the Prime Minister’s Office a couple of weeks ago, but had been vetoed.

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