Learning to fly

Patel has already gone on record to say that he would rather concentrate on 35 non-metro airports. For one, nothing will move until the Delhi and Mumbai airports are signed, sealed and delivered. While Patel would rather keep a political hot potato like Kolkata airport on the backburner — Chennai, in contrast, is a smoother option — it remains to be seen how a keen PMO would tackle the next step.

Moreover, experts believe the present bidding procedures need a lot of fine-tuning if the government wants to avoid controversies while inviting bids for the Chennai and Kolkata airports.

One big learning is that the technical parameters have to be more transparent. The issue of subjectivity in the technical bids was a central problem with Round One of the airport modernization process. Clearly, a model has to be worked out to allot objective marking to the bidders.

‘‘The basic criteria for technical parameters, which was set at 80 per cent initially was a bit too high. I think that in the future the government should set a criteria which would attract more infrastructure companies,” said the former director of the Airport Authority of India Sudhir Kumar, who has thrown his weight behind the privatisation process post retirement.

Experts are also of the view that to make the process more transparent the authorities should ask the bidders to submit their final master plans before the bids are awarded. As per the present requirement, bidders have to submit an initial development plan which can be altered after the bid is awarded. ‘‘It is strange that in this process the quality of the work will be evaluated after the bid is awarded. The winners have the liberty of altering the development plan. This loophole should be plugged,’’ an official from a company which lost out on the bidding race said.

Some of the prospective bidders are also put off by the clause in the tender that specifies that a penalty of $ 80 million would have to be borne by the foreign partner in the consortium alone, in case the winning consortium was unable to adhere to the standards laid down by the Indian government in modernising and restructuring the airports.

A senior official from a finance corporation added: ‘‘I don’t think that the modernisation process got the best of bids. Most of the better airport managers were put off because of the risk involved in operating an airport in India and the poor incentive structure being offered. The authorities need to modify the cost plus tariff-setting structure with a pre-determined user charges structure that will attract better airport managers’’.

While there is a counter-argument that there is no shortage of bidders, an overall look again at the process is recommended by all to avoid controversies in the future. Meanwhile, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation’s Kapil Kaul feels that the government should generate a consensus amongst all stakeholders before coming out with another bid.