The Hindu Business Line : Aviation Ministry seeks stamp duty waiver for Delhi, Mumbai airports

THE Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has asked the Delhi and Maharashtra Governments to waive the stamp duty that has to be paid for the restructuring of Delhi and Mumbai airports.

Official sources said that the Minister for Civil Aviation, Mr Praful Patel, met the Chief Ministers of the two States to impress on the need for not charging the stamp duty payable for restructuring the two metro airports.

"Both the State Governments appear positive to the requests. However, no final decision has yet been taken on the issue. The issue will also have to be cleared by the two Cabinets," a senior Government official who was present at both the meetings said.

The Union Government's attempt to restructure the two airports has attracted bids from nine entities including Reliance, L&T, Bharti, GMR group, D.S. Construction Ltd and DLF.

Industry sources say that the implementation of the MoCA proposal by the two State Governments will "considerably" bring down the project cost of the two metro airports.

In June 2004, the UPA coalition Government pegged the foreign direct investment cap at 49 per cent in the proposed modernisation and restructuring of the two airports.The previous NDA Government had earlier mandated that foreign investors could pick up a stake of 74 per cent while the remaining 26 per cent would be held by the Airports Authority of India.

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