No additional land yet for Bangalore airport

No additional land yet for Bangalore airport
The Financial Express

BANGALORE, JAN 5: Nodal agency for the Devanahalli greenfield international airport Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL), has refuted reports that the state would allot to it additional 263 acres of land for the project.

The state, at a Cabinet meeting in December, had reduced the area to be given to the project to 4,050 acres from 4,450 acres proposed earlier. BIAL said that the company was yet to decide on whether the proposals of the government would be accepted as they are. However, no proposal has been made seeking any additional land yet, it said.

Speaking to FE, BIAL CEO Albert Brunner said, “We are waiting to hear from the government. First of all, we will have to finalise the major agreements such as state support, land lease and shareholders’ agreement. Further moves will be made only after we discuss these with other stake holders.”

The financial closure for the project, he estimated, would be possible by February end. While government sources had said that work would begin in February, Mr Brunner said that, a more realistic estimate, “if all stakeholders worked together,” would be the end of March.

Reacting to reports that the state had forwarded the final state support, land lease and a revised shareholders’ agreement (which are said to be scheduled for formalisation on January 24), BIAL maintained that it was yet to hear from the state government and had not received the final drafts yet.

“We have not yet seen the final drafts and have no indication as to how the revisions, if any, have been done. It would be speculative to make further comments,” Mr Brunner said.

Karnataka has agreed to give a soft loan of Rs 275 crore as base support for the project and Rs 75 crore as contingency. The interest free loan is repayable in ten years.

Karnataka and the Centre each hold 13% stake in the Rs 1,334-crore project, while the remaining 74% is held by a consortium of Zurich Airport (17%), L&T (17%) and Siemens( 40%).