In an hour-long meeting, Rao told the deputy chairman that clearances from various arms of the government held up DIAL’s plans to improve passenger facilities such as increasing security channels, immigration counters and X-Ray screening machines by about 4-6 months. While Ahluwalia acknowledged that some of the problems were not really of GMR’s making, he noted that the DIAL management should have anticipated them, given the robust 20 per cent rise in passenger traffic.

DIAL executives said the number of immigration counters is proposed to be increased from the existing 56 to 100 by June 2008, for which additional manpower and separate immigration cadre would be required. They also said clearances were needed to hire 1,400 additional Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel to man the airport. The extra personnel would be required to handle the security channels to be more than doubled to 22 from 10 now. At present, 2,317 CISF personnel are posted at the Delhi airport.

In its presentation to the Planning Commission, DIAL also said it was planning to set up an interim terminal, at a cost of about Rs 100 crore, that will have a capacity to handle about 3 million passengers. This, it said, was not part of the Operation, Management Development Agreement (OMDA) signed between DIAL and the Airports Authority of India Ltd (AAI). Rao is also said to have told Ahluwalia that DIAL was planning to upgrade the Haj terminal since it remained idle for almost eight months a year. This would help DIAL shift some airlines to the Haj terminal.

DIAL said delay by airlines to relocate their back offices, poor state of roof-slab of the terminal causing leakages and construction of temporary offices for all functional offices have also been major challenges in executing the international terminal project. On the domestic terminal upgradation, company officials claimed there has been a delay of eight months in relocation of the Indian Air Force blocks while there has been a four-month delay in relocation of the VIP gate.

The modernisation of Delhi airport, spread over multiple phases and 20 years, is expected to cost Rs 30,000 crore, but has been running into consistent delays. Ahluwalia’s review of the airport earlier this week had caused a verbal spat between him and civil aviation minister Praful Patel. Patel shot off a letter to him, accusing the Planning Commission of meddling in issues relating to civil aviation that have also delayed modernisation programmes of the Kolkata and Chennai airports.

DIAL’s Plan B

•Set up an interim terminal by 2009 that can handle passenger capacity of up to 3 million

•Upgrade Haj terminal – idle for 8 months in a year – and shift some airlines there

•More than double security check channels to 22 from 10 now; more CISF force needed

•Number of immigration counters to be almost doubled from the existing 56 to 100

Year Passenger traffic/ yr

2005-06 16 mn

2006-07 20 mn

2007-08 24 mn

Projected annual increase: 20%