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Team set up to negotiate on Bangalore airport

Madhumathi D.S.

BANGALORE, July 14

A NINE-MEMBER team headed by the State Finance Secretary, Mr C. Gopal Reddy, has been constituted to negotiate proposals of the Bangalore International Airport project with the Siemens-led preferred bidder.

Notified on July 10, the team has a four-point mandate. This includes optimising the project cost, which is estimated by the consortium at Rs 1,128 crore, bring down State support estimated at Rs 430 crore and finalisation of the shareholders' and conces sion agreements.

The Government team will be seeking ways to avoid over-investing in phase I and looking at reducing its cost strictly in relation to facilities required. Anything that can be pushed back to phase II would be considered, a key team member told Business Li ne.

The team has initially been given two months to complete the negotiations and ``we will get started as soon as possible''. Until the team goes back to the Government with this outcome, the second ranked bidder, the Hochtief-Dusseldorf Airport combine, wi ll be on stand-by.

The finalist consortium will hold 74 per cent in Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL), the joint venture promoting entity.

The team includes the Principal Secretaries, Mr S. Krishna Kumar of Infrastructure Development, Mr B.K. Das of Urban Development, Law Secretary, Mr C.K. Neelakant Raj, CMD of the nodal KSIIDC, and Mr K. Jairaj, MD, BIAL, as Member Secretary.

Mr Nasser Munjee, MD, IDFC, who chaired the evaluation team, and another key evaluator, Mr Robert Wadell of US-based Wadell Engineering Corp, are its external members. Airports Authority of India, a 13 per cent joint promoter of the project, will also b e represented.