The Hindu Business Line : Govt opens technical bids for Delhi, Mumbai airports revamp

THE Government today opened the technical bids submitted by the six short-listed bidders participating in the process for modernisation and restructuring of the airports in Delhi and Mumbai.

While official were tight-lipped, sources said that today's proceedings in the Ministry were a mere formality where senior officials initialled each page of the voluminous bid documents that had been submitted by the bidders.

They indicated that while initially there was only one team of two senior Government officials to sign the bid documents, later in the day two more teams were added to hasten the entire process.

The Government expects to complete the process of evaluating the technical bids in the next 3-4 weeks and take up the financial bids shortly thereafter.

However, the financial bids of only those who score at least 80 per cent in the technical round will be evaluated.

The process of awarding the contracts for both the airports is likely to be completed by the end of this year. The Government has received bids from six leading industrial groups for the Mumbai airport and five for the Delhi airport.

The five bidders for Delhi airport include GMR, which has teamed up with the operators of Frankfurt airport, Fraport; Reliance, which has submitted a bid with ASA Mexico; D.S. Construction with a tie-up with the Munich airport; Macquire, which has tied up with Airport de Paris; and the Essel group, in association with Turkish airport operator TAV.

For the Mumbai airport, the Government has also received a bid from the GVK group, which has a tie-up with a South African airport.

The process also saw the Singapore-based Changi airport and the German airport operator, Hochtief, withdraw from the race.

Both Changi and Hochtief are said to be upset about the $80-million penalty that would have to be borne by the foreign partner alone in case the consortium winning the bid to modernise and restructure the two airports is unable to meet the standards laid down by the Government.

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