By IANS,
New Delhi : Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh Wednesday refused to comment on the leaked Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report that hinted at financial irregularities in allocating the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport to a conglomerate led by infrastructure major GMR Group.
The CAG report questioned the rationale behind allowing Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), the company which runs the IGI airport, to levy user charges on passengers, which was not under the operations, management and development agreement (OMDA) it signed with the government.
“Let the report be tabled in parliament and only after that we can go through it and its findings,” Singh said.
“The report has to go through the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). So, I cannot make any comments on anything that has appeared about the draft report.”
According to the minister, an independent airport economic regulator, Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (AERA), has the mandate to decide upon the airport charges and not the ministry.
Recently, AERA allowed a 346 percent increase in user development fees (UDF) to be levied by DIAL as landing-parking charges in the range of Rs.195.80-Rs.1,068.
The report has also made references to the leasing of 4,608 acres for development of the airport with an additional 190 acres leased to DIAL at Rs.100 annually.