‘Delhi’s T3 shows Rs 1k-cr overspend’

New Delhi: The swanky new terminal at Delhi airport, widely referred to as Terminal 3 , or T3, may have evoked widespread admiration but two consultants appointed by a body that regulates the country’s airports have said that some of the spending on it was not justified.
The external consultants, KPMG, an auditor, and public sector company, Engineers India(EIL), have found that spending of around Rs 1,000 crore appears to be excessive, say people familiar with the contents of reports submitted by them to the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA). The two firms have submitted separate reports. The overspending comes to around 8% of the project cost, the reports say.
The plush terminal built over a period of five years has seen spending of Rs 12,700 crore.
The reports are also not in favour of including what it referred to as “unincurred costs” in the total project cost. “There are unincurred costs of around Rs 350 crore towards facilities that have not yet come up. They should not be a part of the project cost,” the person said, citing the example of an ATC tower, which is yet to come up and whose cost is added into the Rs 12,700 crore.
One of the reports has also said that the new terminal has been “overbuilt” to handle the projected traffic.
“If GMR is not able to justify the total project cost, then it will have to suffer losses on that investment,” a person familiar with the airport regulator’s thinking said.
AERA had appointed the two firms earlier this year to review the cost of T3 when costs exceeded the estimated Rs 9,800 crore.
28/10/10 Anindya Upadhyay/Economic Times

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

Categories: airports Oct 2010