Now, parliament panel steps in airport mess

Now, parliament panel steps in airport mess:
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Now--parliament-panel-steps-in-airport-mess/310706/

New Delhi, May 16 Peeved over the delay in clearing the modernisation and expansion works at the Kolkata and Chennai airports and the mess that has been created of the privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports, the parliamentary committee on civil aviation has summoned both the Planning Commission and the civil aviation ministry for a meeting on May 22 to explain their stands on the issue.
Speaking to FE, a senior parliamentarian on the committee said, “The Planning Commission has been creating some trouble for some time now. Frankly speaking, it has crossed its line (now). It has been raising too many objections. We want to know the reason behind this. Their objections have delayed clearance of the projects.”
“The Commission is more eager to put most of the modernisation projects on the PPP mode. They have not realised the mess they have created out of privatising the Delhi and Mumbai airports. They will be happy if we put the Kolkata and Chennai airports also on the PPP mode,” the member added.
Incidentally, the Airport Authority of India (AAI)'s proposal for modernising Kolkata airport at an estimated cost of Rs 1,943 crore had been termed an “unviable investment” and “over-ambitious” by the Commission’s officials at a recent inter-ministerial group meeting.
“While the Kolkata airport should certainly be modernised to world class standards, the efficiency of investments would have to be borne in mind in order to ensure that the user charges/tariffs to be borne by passengers do not increase significantly when the proposed regulator determines these charges,” the Commission had argued at the inter-ministerial group meeting.
In line with a decision of the Committee on Infrastructure, the Commission further suggested a modular approach for terminal expansion in two phases. It also said the AAI's proposal for a secondary runway at a cost of Rs 35 crore and another Rs 290 crore for constructing Air Traffic Controllers’ towers and upgrading a railway structure do not look feasible.
Interestingly, the Commission feels that construction of a new terminal building of 1,80,000 square metres at the Kolkata airport to handle 24.56 million passengers by 2016 is much too big a space as till 2016, most of the space would lie unused. The airport handled 6 million passengers in 2006-07.
On the finances side, the Commission pointed that the Kolkata airport had an operating surplus of Rs 33.40 crore in 2006-07 and its ability to absorb and service...