AAI Looks To Begin Afresh

It took quite a while for the Airports Authority of India to cancel the controversial Ground Handling tender. This, despite the fact that thrice, over the last six months, Cruising HeigHts had highlighted that everything was not above board in the tender process. In this, perhaps, the last chapter of the AAI tender saga, TIRTHANKAR GHOSH pieces together the moves that brought about the end to the tender process and the way forward.

- Tirthankar Ghosh

R .I.P. Requiescat In Pace or Rest In Peace. That is the fate of the Ground Handling tender for 76 airports. Laid to rest after the cancellation by Airports Authority of India (AAI), the participants who for the lack of knowledge on the subject or whatever reasons had quoted unrealistic and unimaginably high percentages of royalty amount that was supposed to be shared with AAI, have breathed a sigh of relief. They have reason enough: if the contract were to be awarded to them and had they accepted it, they would perforce have to suffer huge losses -because it would have become impossible to pay the royalty percentage quoted by them. And, if the participants were to back out from accepting the contract, they would have lost crores of rupees deposited by them as earnest money to AAI as it would have been forfeited.

With that, a long-drawn story – almost a year-old since the tender procedure was begun in May last year – of deception, flagrant abuse and bending of rules ended. But will that bring peace to the minds of Ground Handling stakeholders?

CRUISING HEIGHTS readers will remember the three investigative pieces that appeared in the issues of February 2019 (“That’s the name of the game”), March 2019 (“Tender tales”) and May 2019 (“Will our airports be secure?”) that exposed the goings-on in the AAI. The in-depth articles were based on eyewitnesses and whistleblower’s letters. In fact, all our attempts to get reactions to the articles from the vigilance authorities both in the AAI and the central government remained unanswered.