The spat between the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Planning Commission carried on for the third day in a row on Wednesday, with Plan Panel Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia saying that the body could not be held responsible for delays in modernisation of airports.

Ahluwalia was responding to Minister of Civil Aviation Praful Patel’s letter to him on Wednesday, accusing the Planning Commission of delaying projects.

Ahluwalia and Patel have been caught in a war of words ever since the Planning Commission called a sudden review of Delhi airport’s upgradation on Monday, pulling up officials from Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), using some harsh words.

Even Patel minced no words in his reply to Ahluwalia, writing that the Plan Panel had constantly delayed airport projects, starting with the bidding process for Delhi and Mumbai airports and now pushing back modernisation of Kolkata and Chennai airports.

“The notion that we are holding back is perhaps not correct,” Ahluwalia said on Wednesday. He also dismissed the minister’s charge that the commission’s “constant objections” had delayed the upgradation of Kolkata and Chennai airports. “There is a whole process through which government projects move,” he said.

With questions being raised about how the Planning Commission suddenly came to hold a review of the Delhi airport’s upgradation status, Ahluwalia hit back saying monitoring was an important function of the panel.

“The review that I did was a routine review,” Ahluwalia said, on the meeting with officials of DIAL, that sparked the row between him and Patel. “It is an important part of management that the Planning Commission looks at.”

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