The onus of taking the final decision on the bids for upgrading Delhi and Mumbai airports is now on the Empowered Group of Ministers after the Inter Ministerial Group, comprising officials from the same ministries, were unable to reach a consensus on the technical evaluation of the bids.The EGOM, headed by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, is slated to meet on December 21. The IMG report with all the different shades of opinion will be presented before the EGOM which will then have to arrive at a decision. In the wake of dissent shown by the Planning Commission representative over the technical evaluation process, the EGOM directed the IMG to undertake a thorough review of the method adopted by global technical advisor Airplan. The GTA had applied a matrix approved by the EGOM and granted marks to each bid.The cut-off mark was kept at 80 and only two bidders qualified. According to the bid document, the EGOM was to consider only those bids which qualified the technical evaluation and then open the financial bids to make a final selection. But with two remaining in the fray, objections were raised and the EGOM asked for a review.As it turns out, sources said, the IMG too has not been able to fully reconcile these differences. There is now an opinion that even the technical evaluation should have been done by the government instead of GTA. The second issue is where the Law Ministry now stands on giving its opinion about whether advisors to the government in this process ought to have been associated with any of the bidders.Ultimately, sources said, the issues are largely technical and need not be a roadblock if there is a clear political decision on taking the process to its logical end. The government is under pressure from the Left to re-examine the entire process amid allegations that it was ‘‘rigged’’ to benefit some bidders.But any further delay would drastically bring down investor interest in airport modernisation projects. Already, some international players who had shown interest have backed out midway fearing that this could be another long haul which will eventually hit a political hurdle. After the discussion in Parliament on a calling attention motion by the Left last week, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The two, sources said, discussed ways by which a consensus can be arrived within the government to take the process forward without losing the current momentum.
