Parliamentary body raps civil aviation ministry on MIAL issue

New Delhi: The civil aviation ministry today came under severe criticism from a parliamentary panel for allowing Mumbai’s private-led airport operator for making “highly irregular withdrawals” from the escrow account meant for fees collected from passengers to provide security.

“The ministry, instead of coming down on the errant airport operator with a heavy hand, has given it a long rope by remaining content with (issuing) advisories which have not been enforced,” the Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) said in a report tabled in Parliament.

The COPU, after examining the findings of the CAG report on the issue, said the GVK-led Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) should be “squarely blamed for the highly irregular withdrawals through deliberate misrepresentation of the law, rules and regulations and basic facts, from an escrow account which it was operating in fiduciary capacity”.

The escrow account is meant for airport operators to deposit passenger service fee (PSF) collected from passengers for payments to the CISF to provide security at the airports.

The remaining amount, if any, is to be transferred to the state-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) under the Operation, Maintenance and Development Agreement (OMDA) the government had signed with the private airport operator.

The COPU also found it “highly intriguing” that though an audit of the account was carried out in 2009, no significant observations were made by the auditors regarding the manner of utilisation of the funds in it. It was also “surprising” that the matter was never discussed in the Board level meetings.

“All this while the airport operator has used all sorts of excuses to continue with the unauthorised withdrawals and justify them in contravention of all rules and regulations,” the COPU said. The Committee, headed by Congress MP Jagdambika Pal, came down heavily on MIAL for buying an x-ray screening machine out of the PSF (Security Component) escrow account and offering it for use by the airlines, saying this was in “clear violation” of the ministry’s clarification on the matter.

Noting that Rs 15.21 crore had been reversed by airport operator following a civil aviation ministry directive, the COPU pointed out that the ministry did not do anything to recover penal interest on the amount from MIAL on the ground that the matter was sub-judice.

“The Committee find it inexplicable as to why the Ministry are reluctant even to work out the interest component on the suspicious plea that the matter is sub-judice, more so, when they are liable to file all these details in the (Delhi) High Court in support of their claim while pleading in the said case.”

The COPU expressed “strong disapproval of this inaction by the Ministry” and asked it to do the needful to expedite the legal process.

PTI