Defending its findings on Delhi airport, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on Friday said it was the responsibility of the joint venture company DIAL to mobilise resources for the entire airport expansion and modernisation process.
“What we have pointed out, is that as per the Operation Management Development Agreement (OMDA), it is responsibility of the Joint Venture Consortium (JVC) to bring in adequate debt and equity to finance the capital project.
“So from that point of view, we have said that the levy of development fees violates the provisions of OMDA. That aspect was not considered before the Supreme Court at all,” CAG Director General Gautam Guha said.
AFP
Guha acknowledged that CAG had not gone through the Supreme Court judgements on issues relating to OMDA and development fee.
Asked why the comments from the Civil Aviation Ministry were not incorporated in the report, Deputy CAG AK Patnaik said “we cannot wait endlessly to finalise the report. We have our time bound schedule. We have to give it to the Parliament.”
Explaining the processes of finalisation of the report, Guha said that CAG issued the draft audit report on February 15 and received Civil Aviation Ministry’s reply on March 12.
“…then we had the Exit Conference on March 16. We had issued the minutes of the conference on March 21 and we waited for 45 days and we submitted the Audit report on May 11, 2012 to the Government of India,” he said, adding that the Ministry’s response came only in June.
The CAG today slammed the government for giving out Delhi airport and its land with a potential earning capacity of Rs 1,63,557 crore to private-led operator DIAL which made a total equity contribution of only Rs 2,450 crore.
PTI
