‘We are going ahead with airport project’

‘We are going ahead with airport project’
BIAL Reacts To Panel Charge
The Times of India

Bangalore: The company handling the Bangalore international airport project at Devanahalli has described as unfair the parliamentary standing committee’s criticism, on Tuesday, about the lack of transparency in tenders for the airport.

The engineering procurement contracts (EPC) for the airport have been signed with Larsen and Toubro and Siemens, who hold 17 and 40 per cent equity in the airport respectively. The committee has said this will lead to a “conflict of interests.’’

Here is what BIAL CEO Albert Brunner told The Times of India:

1 The parliamentary committee has sought a probe in the tendering?
We have already explained everything to the committee. If they have more doubts, we will answer them.

2 Will it affect the airport construction?
No. We are going ahead.

3 Isn’t it wrong that investors themselves are the contractors?
There might have been a conflict of interests, but we have taken care to prevent this. Our consortium was awarded the project only because of our experience in large infrastructure undertakings. It was said right at the beginning that the investors will be contractors. Also, when the shareholders agreement was signed in January 2002, it was made very clear that Siemens and L&T would build the airport.

4 But should there be transparency in tendering?
Every step of the way, the EPC contracts had been scrutinised by independent consultants — by Mott Macdonald, appointed by GoK in 2002, by Scott Wilson, appointed the lending banks and Doursch consultants in Germany, the C.R. Narayan Rao consultants in Chennai by the BIAL board in 2004. They looked into scope, competitiveness and feasibility of the EPC bids. Our contractors are now charging less than the overall price index in India. It is unfair to say we have not been transparent.