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Journalism of Courage
The plan to set up a dedicated airline for the North Eastern Region NER has been grounded again thrice over the past one year with the latest bidders,four in total,failing to make the cut despite watering down of qualifying conditions.
The North Eastern Council NEC is now planning to initiate fresh negotiations with government-owned carrier Alliance Air in a bid to bring some degree of air connectivity in the region.
Indo Power Projects,Spice Entertainment Corporation,Sky King Aviation Ltd and Alliance Air had bid during the latest bidding process. NEC officials said that except for Alliance Air,no other player had any experience or infrastructure to set up a dedicated airline. They also failed to meet many other qualifying criteria,they added.
We now plan to ask Alliance Air to put two aircraft in Guwahati instead of the one that they have at present. We also want them to raise their fleet size to atleast six from the current four, the official added.
Significantly,the NEC had considerably relaxed the qualifying conditions for bids to make space for more players. The bid guarantee,too,was reduced from Rs 2 crore to Rs 25 lakh and the performance guarantee was also lessened.
In 2008,NEC had renewed its agreement with domestic state carrier Alliance Air to provide air connectivity in the region for a one-year period. That agreement looks all set to be renewed now.
