Despite acquiring necessary clearances for Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIAL), CIDCO, the nodal agency in charge of the country?s largest airport project, is yet to acquire about 247 hectares of land comprising 4-5 villages. The government is currently in talks with the villagers who haven?t agreed with the compensation offered to them.

CIDCO officials say that the remaining land should be acquired in the next four months.

?We will complete the remaining land acquisition in the next four months before approaching the qualified bidders for request for proposal (RFP),? said Sanjay Bhatia, vice-chairperson and managing director, CIDCO.

The request for qualification (RFQ), which was recently announced by Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, is the first step in the bidding process in which CIDCO will shortlist eligible players. This is followed by RFP in which the shortlisted players can bid.

The process of shortlisting the actual bidders will be completed by July-August 2014, Bhatia said.

?CIDCO will then announce the list of pre-qualified applicants eligible for the second stage of bidding, by August 2014. The name of the winning bidder will be announced by December 2014-February 2015. The PPP should be in place by then,? he added.

The R14,574-crore airport project will be carried out in four phases.

CIDCO was expected to start the construction work in 2010, while the first phase of the project was expected to be started by September 2013 and completed by 2015-16. The first phase is expected to be completed only by 2018 after it was stuck because of clearance delays as well as opposition from the affected people.

The airport, once completed, will be spread over 1,160 hectares while an additional 1,108 hectares will be earmarked for non-aeronautical use, which will include a mangrove park. Initially the airport will have the capacity to handle 10 million passengers annually, and once it goes full stream by 2030, it will cater to 60 million passengers annually. The revised cost of the R14,574-crore project is nearly double the previous estimate of R8,722 crore.

Though the land acquisition issue has remained unsolved, the government has floated a global tender for the project.

Several international agencies and consortia, including Zurich Airport Authority and British Airport Authority, have met government officials and have expressed their interest to bid for the project, CIDCO officials told FE.

Indian companies such as GVK, GMR, Reliance Infrastructure and L&T Infrastructure are also interested in bidding for the project, according to industry sources. Hyderabad-based GVK, which runs Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) currently, has the first right to refusal for NMIAL.

?We will bid for the project. We have a prized presence in this case, as we have the right for first refusal for the project,? chief financial officer of GVK, Issac George, said at a recent analyst call.

CIDCO?s Bhatia added that since there are only a handful of companies that have the experience of running an airport by themselves, most foreign parties interested in NMIAL, like their domestic competition, are most likely to form a consortia to make their bids for the project.

?What we are specifying is that the bidders should meet three requirements?financial capabilities, positive net worth of R2,375 crore, and the experience of handling airport project worth R9,500 crore in the past few years. Apart from this, the interested parties should have significant experience of running an airport,? Bhatia added.

CIDCO will continue to hold at least 25% stake in the project, while the project-affected people will hold 1% after the construction bid is handed out to a party or consortium by early next year. However, whether the Airports Authority of India (AAI) would have a share in the project was yet to be decided, Bhatia added.