Ministry wants regular cost updates from Mial

New Delhi: In an attempt to check expenditure overruns, the operator of Mumbai’s international airport has to now regularly update the civil aviation ministry on the cost of modernizing the facility instead of waiting for the project to be completed.
The ministry has also asked Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), run by a consortium headed by GMR Infrastructure Ltd, how the cost of modernizing the capital’s airport has more than doubled.
The two airports were privatized four years ago. DIAL saw its project cost rise to Rs12,700 crore after the first phase of modernization was completed in March, from Rs5,900 crore estimated in 2006.
Mumbai International Airport Ltd (Mial), due to complete its first stage of modernization in 2012, has estimated project cost at Rs9,800 crore and the ministry is concerned that its cost may also shoot up.
“In the light of the DIAL costs, we wanted to put in some safeguards,” said a ministry official who declined to be named. “Costs can’t suddenly increase, they happen over time, (and) they need to tell us as they happen.”
03/06/10 Tarun Shukla/Live Mint

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Categories: Airports Jun 2010