Bidding for airports’ upgrade projects may be outsourced

New Delhi: In its second term, the UPA government is keen on awarding infrastructure projects at a fast pace and clearing any hurdles in the process. The ministry of civil aviation is considering outsourcing the bidding process for 35 non-metro airport projects — to be modernised and upgraded by the state enterprise Airports Authority of India — to consulting majors in the infrastructure sector. This would imply that after the letter of intent is floated the private firm will take on the Request For Qualification (RFQ), Request For Proposal and award the process with due representation from the government. This would help the government to focus on inter-state co-operation and getting clearances. Some of the key issues in airport modernisation are land acquisition and environmental clearances with a host of state-based clearances. The proposal was mooted in an internal meeting of civil aviation ministry, chaired by civil aviation minister Praful Patel, informed sources. While airside development has taken place at nine of the 21 non-metro airports which were to be ready by March 2009, city-side development lags behind, according to that latest assessment carried out by Planning Commission. These nine airports are Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Dehradun, Jaipur, Nagpur, Trichy, Udaipur and Vishakhapatnam. Of the remaining 14 airports which were to be completed by March 2010, work has been completed at nine airports. These are Akola, Belgaum, Kozikode, Dibrugarh, Gondia, Hubli, Kullu, Srinagar and Surat.
However, the much touted public private partnership model remains unoperational in the airport infrastructure development for non-metro airports. Last year, AAI had invited expression of interest for development work at Amritsar and Udaipur airports which received around 25 proposals.
09/06/09 Smita Aggarwal/Indian Express

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: Airports Jun 2009