The very issue that made the parliamentary panel recommend a probe into BIAL could resurface in Delhi and Mumbai, because most of the consortia have builders or real estate developers as partners. Says parliamentary panel chairman Nilotpal Basu, "It's obvious from the structuring of the transaction documents that airport modernisation has been relegated to the background and commercial utilisation of land has become the primary concern." At the same time, the AAI has been denied this opportunity, to use its own land, money (over Rs 2,000-crore surplus) and expertise.
In fact, an ex-AAI chairman says the authority was always blamed for things it did not manage: "We were blamed for inefficiency. Long queues at check-in counters, emigration, customs clearance, baggage clearance and parking woes. But these are all handled by others—the police, the airlines and the ground handling agencies. ITDC manages the duty-free shops. They have never even made us accountable. Once when we chalked out a plan to bring in the world's best ground handlers, politicians with vested interests scuttled the move. The AAI is paying for problems fostered by the ministry."
The former chief of AAI says even simple changes that could have made life easier for passengers were not allowed by the government, anxious as it was to hand over the two airports to private players. "At Delhi's international airport we could have built a huge terminal spread over the visitor's lounge to the present terminal, including the space now occupied by a road in between. The ministry did not approve of it. A similar case was the stalled modernisation of domestic terminals in Delhi and Mumbai. There was an attempt to make the airports look decrepit before the sale," says the official.
After the handing over of Delhi and Mumbai airports, the AAI may go into the red, from the Rs 315 crore net profit that it currently makes. The ministry, though, insists that the AAI, even after losing the two prime airports, would retain 50 per cent of its income. The air traffic control services for these two airports, an important service and money-spinner, would still remain with the AAI. But this could be yet another projection that could go wrong as it happened in the cases of privatisation in other sectors.
In fact, since 1993, the AAI has been proposing ways to modernise and refurbish Indian airports. Its officers claim that what the private players are expected to do is what the AAI board had proposed in 2003. In its June 25 resolution that year, the AAI board had listed out the best airports in the world and their architects. They wanted a global competition to be held and the winner to get the job of designing the Delhi and Mumbai airports.
The AAI could draw up these plans only because the thenBJP-led NDA government deferred its privatisation plans in January 2003 and sought AAI's plan. Now, AAI officials claim their plan is being re-circulated by the Key Infrastructure department of the civil aviation ministry as the proposed modernisation plan for private players. An argument the ministry has had no effective counter yet.
The modernisation plans include better passenger amenities and a modern terminal building but no technological upgradation in communications or navigation. "If Sreedharan can build a modern metro system for Delhi, why can't the AAI build terminals? This is an insult to the country's engineering capabilities," says Dipankar Mukherjee, ex-chairman of the parliamentary panel.
The multi-party committee's report is categoric and points out the pitfalls: "The committee understands that the revenue generated by the government from profit-making airports is used to fulfil the developmental needs as well as day-to-day activities of the otherairports. The sustained existence of such airports would become difficult in such a scenario. The committee recommends that the government may consider its observation enumerated above and seriously review the strategy for modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports." But Patel—backed by the PM, finance minister and the deputy chairman of the planning commission—doesn't seem to be listening.
