JD(S): By hook or crook, we will scuttle airport...

...unless we can get a share of the pie?

Airport project hits a trough

The JD(S) believes that ‘kickbacks’ have been given over the last few years while giving permission for the Bangalore International Airport.

Deccan Herald

It is the turn of the Bangalore International Airport project, after the Bangalore-Mysore expressway project, to become a bone of contention in the Government of Karnataka. Coalition partners Congress and the JD(S) are certainly not seeing eye-to-eye on the issue.

Sources in the State Secretariat said Friday’s Cabinet meeting witnessed a heated debate on the proposed international airport project. Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah reportedly told Chief Minister N Dharam Singh that a green signal to the multi-crore project would be given only after studying in detail certain agreements signed so far.

It is said that the JD(S) was of the strong view that “kickbacks” have been given during the last few years while giving permission to the Siemens-Zurich Airport-L&T consortium to take up the project and, hence, the Congress is now in a hurry to go ahead with the project. In fact, the JD(S) had during the last Assembly elections lodged a complaint with the Election Commission that the Congress had offered a financial concession of about Rs 438 crore to the consortium in violation of the model code of conduct. The state government later had to defer its decision.
Sources said an IT captain, who is closely involved in the project work, met AICC chief Sonia Gandhi in Delhi recently and lodged a complaint that the JD(S) may not go ahead with the work. The IT executive had reportedly told Ms Gandhi that the JD(S) may not give its nod for the project once the state Cabinet is expanded. The Congress should bring pressure on the JD(S) to give its consent to the airport project failing which the expansion of Cabinet would not take place, he said.

Following this development, Ms Gandhi had a discussion with Mr Singh on the issue. The latter rushed to Bangalore on Friday and convened the Cabinet meeting on Saturday mainly to discuss the airport project. When Mr Singh told the meeting that the government should go ahead with the project, Mr Siddaramaiah and other JD(S) ministers vehemently argued that clearance would be given only in principle. They told Mr Singh that a meeting of the officials of Bangalore International Airport Limited and the consortium should be convened to discuss the project .

What remains dependent on the key State Support Agreement is the land lease agreement, the EPC contract (execution agreement with L&T) and financial closure with ICICI Bank which can all be concluded only after State Support Agreement is reached. Stakeholders in the consortium, including Siemens, have time and again threatened to pull out if agreements fail to conclude by the end of this fiscal.

Meanwhile, Major Industries and Infrastructure Minister P G R Sindhia said the State was for reducing the cost of the airport project by at least Rs 105 crore (the total projected cost is Rs 1,300 crore). “State government support in the form of a soft loan to the consortium would be Rs 350 crore. We cannot reduce our share at this stage, as an agreement has already been drawn. But we have decided not to give sales tax exemption of Rs 30 crore to the consortium,” he said.

The minister said he and Mr Siddaramaiah would meet representatives of the Bangalore International Airport Ltd and the consortium on December 14 at 11 am.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had also discussed the airport project with JD(S) chief H D Deve Gowda. Mr Gowda told Mr Singh that “everything was not well” with the Bangalore airport project.