The Delhi International Airport (DIAL) has rejected the claims of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its report which said that the private airport developer was given undue favour in the contract awarded for the Delhi airport. The report has pointed out that the government gave 4,608 acre land to DIAL at R100 per annum, which would fetch R1.63 lakh crore for the private company.
A senior DIAL official denied such claims. The official said that according to the bid structure, the primary purpose of giving land to DIAL was not for rental but to grant concession for the operations and development of airport and associated infrastructure and R100 was just a nominal amount to effect the conveyance deed made available to all the bidders.
The airport developer also rubbished the R100 crore per acre land valuation by Merrill Lynch, as mentioned in the CAG, saying that ?first of all, the report is an analyst report and not approved by the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority and secondly, the valuation was done in August 2011, whereas the concession was signed in May 2006. So, it would be not correct to compare land valuations at such distinct times??.
The CAG has also raised issues related to levy of development fee (DF). In its report it said that the ministry of civil aviation allowed DIAL a levy at Delhi airport for funding the project cost, which was in contravention of the provisions of OMDA (operation, management and development agreement), provision of AAI (Airports Authority of India) Act and even the AERA Act and this was later confirmed by the Delhi High Court.
The DIAL official said that the levy of DF was necessitated on account of inability of AAI to infuse further equity and the same was also confirmed by AAI last year in January. ?Moreover, the levy of DF is under Section 22 A of AAI Act, 1994. This was enacted in 2003 and therefore, in knowledge of all the bidders. So, there is no question of undue benefit to DIAL,? the official said.
The CAG report is likely to be tabled in the current session of the Parliament next week.
