Bidders May Boycott Bangalore Airport Project

The $400 million Bangalore international airport project has run into trouble with shortlisted consortia, Bechtel, Zurich Airport, ABB and Schipol protesting against changes in bid evaluation norms.

Sources in the state government told Business Standard that both Bechtel-led consortium and even ABB were considering a move to exit the airport project because they foresee legal tangles once the project is awarded to one of the bidders.

The sources said the bidders had during their meeting with top government officials pointed out that the bids were invited on the basis of certain evaluation norms but have been changed during the request for proposal (RFP) stage. Sources said these consortia fear that this could lead to legal problems in case one of the rejected bidders takes the state government to court.

 

Sources said the state government had also amended a few other clauses in the RFP stage. Some of these include, Clause 2.5 which states that the lead bidder cannot be altered and the members of the bidders cannot be charged without prior consent of the promoter and Clause 24.2 which is about the evaluation of proposals.

After Reliance Industries and British Airports Authority dropped out of the project citing various reasons, five consortia remained in the fray. They included: Zurich Airport-Siemens AG Munich Airport; Schipol Asia sdn-Amsterdam Airport; ABB Airport Technologies GmbH-Berlin Airport and Bechtel Enterprises International-DNATA Airport.

The Bangalore airport project had on earlier occasions too run into problems with the Tata-led consortium withdrawing from the project after it was awarded the contract citing delays as the reason for its action.

The Karnataka government under a new government again floated a tender which attracted a total of 17 companies. Among those who had sent applications for "expression of interest" were the Hindujas and BCC Shipping & Ship Building Ltd. Bids were received from six foreign countries and six Indian companies who had tied up with foreign partners. The criteria necessary for qualifying for bidding for the airport project were: Leader of the consortium should have a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore in each of the previous five years.