Montek, Patel row on DIAL escalates

14 May 2008

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New Delhi: The row between civil aviation minister, Praful Patel, and Planning Commission deputy chairman, Montek S Ahluwalia, escalated on Wednesday, with the deputy chairman responding to a letter written by the aviation minister, saying that review of projects was an important function of the plan panel and that it should not be blamed for delays in airport modernisation works.

"The review that I did was a routine review. It is an important part of the management that Planning Commission looks at," Ahluwalia said on the meeting with officials of DIAL, the private developers of the Delhi airport.

A summons to DIAL officials from Ahluwalia had sparked the row between him and Patel.

"The notion that we are holding back is perhaps not correct... It (any public project) goes through different procedures and goes up to Cabinet for approval," he shot back to Patel's charges that the plan body had delayed awarding of Delhi and Mumbai airport revamp projects.

Earlier Patel had shot off a letter that pointed out that the Kolkata and Chennai airport projects too were being delayed mainly through objections raised by the Planning Commission.

"This is despite the fact that the Committee on Infrastructure, headed by the prime minister, has categorically approved the project," the letter said.

To this Ahluwalia responded by saying: "There are always different points of view of the different ministries on how a public sector project is carried on."

He, however, conceded that problems at the Delhi airport, particularly relating to security clearances, were not in the control of the airport managers and that these would be taken up with relevant ministries and ''that is what these reviews are for."

Ahluwalia also expressed the hope that by end of June the capacity of Delhi airport would increase and further that by the end of the year a temporary additional terminal would become available which would go towards addressing the problems of delays substantially.

In his letter, Patel pointed out that manpower related issues also were great contributors to the delays as various agencies were yet to assign sufficient manpower to tackle vastly increased passenger traffic.

Patel said that his ministry was committed to work closely with the Planning Commission in the future.

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