BackMumbai airport invites bids to develop five land parcels
The ambitious project is aimed at changing the landscape and skyline of the suburbs and the area near the new T2 terminal of Mumbai airport
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Mumbai: Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd (MIAL), led by a GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd consortium, has invited bidding for selling five land parcels of GVK SkyCity, a mixed-use development project near Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, a person close to the development said.
The 20 million sq. ft commercial business complex will be built over a period of 10 years. In 2014, MIAL had awarded 1.16 million sq.ft of land of GVK SkyCity project to Oasis Realty Pvt. Ltd for ₹ 580 crore to develop commercial space.
The company plans to bid out parts of the project in phases over the next seven to eight years, as part of commercial development spread across the suburbs of Santacruz, Sahar, Andheri, Kalina and Kurla, MIAL said in a public advertisement seeking potential bidders.
The ambitious project is aimed at changing the landscape and skyline of the suburbs and the area near the new T2 terminal of Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport, the company said in the advertisement document.
The development project would have hotels, service apartments, entertainment centres along with retail and office spaces, it said.
The person mentioned earlier in the report said this is second phase of land sale and the biggest by GVK as per the master plan prepared by MIAL.
“The request for qualification is for five land parcels around the airport land. These land parcels would be connected by three metro rail stations. The qualified bidder of these land parcels can come up with any feasible idea including hospitality or retail," the person said, who did not disclose the valuation of the land sale.
A GVK spokesperson declined to comment.
GVK is trying to build another BKC within the airport premises, said a second person close to the development, requesting anonymity. BKC refers to Bandra-Kurla Complex, a commercial complex in the suburbs of Mumbai built to decongest South Mumbai.
Rival GMR Group, which runs the Delhi International Airport Pvt. Ltd (DIAL), had landed in trouble while monetizing land at the Delhi airport.
In 2013, the government’s public accounts committee, headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Murli Manohar Joshi, vetted a special audit on the matter of the Delhi airport operator’s subsidiaries. The audit was ordered after a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).
CAG, in a report tabled in Parliament in 2012, had said the civil aviation ministry had allowed the Delhi International Airport Pvt. Ltd (DIAL) “post-contractual benefits (that) violated the tendering process by which the joint venture partner was selected". DIAL and the government have denied the charges.
In 2013, the government’s auditor has also highlighted “undue benefit" to the tune of at least Rs.5,887 crore given by the aviation ministry to MIAL.
In a draft report, CAG emphasized the cosy relationship between the ministry and MIAL during the ongoing modernization of the airport that started in 2006.
“The civil aviation ministry and the Airports Authority of India failed to monitor the project, effectively leading to undue benefit to the private concessionaire while the project kept getting delayed," it said in a report, titled Draft Performance Audit Report on Implementation of Public Private Partnership Project in Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.
To add to it, CAG has again found violations of the terms of the agreement signed //for the privatisation of the Mumbai airport in 2006.
CAG, in its report presented on Monday in Parliament, said GVK-run MIAL did not share revenue with state-run Airports Authority of India in line with the provisions of its agreement.
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