TOI May 27 has a report headlined "Security risk grounds Chinese firm". It seems the contract awarded to a Chinese firm against global tenders to install and maintain aerobridges (for 7 years) at 17 airports has been "shot down" by the Home and External Affairs ministries on the grounds that the prolonged presence of Chinese nationals that would be required for this purpose would pose a security risk to the country.
Of the 17 airports, 5 were supposed to be "hyper-sensitive" while 8 got the "sensitive" tag, with the rest being "normal". The airports mentioned in the report were Leh, Amritsar, Harshil (?) and Guwahati but their categorisation was omitted. The question thus arises as to whether Dabolim was in the complete list (as it most probably is). Recent reports about Dabolim's upgrade had mentioned that 4 aerobridges would be installed in the new international terminal. In a TV news report on the same subject, it seems about 40 aerobridges for a total value of Rs 27 crores are involved in the controversial contract. Further it seems the company has already installed aerobridges at Bangalore, Hyderabad and Cochin airports in the recent past. Since the first two of these are civil enclaves in some sort of military bases it is strange that the work posed no security risk at the time and thereafter. So presumably Dabolim would not have been ruled out a priori for the new contract on security grounds at the time of floating the tender. The TOI report states that the company has gone to court and appealed to the Supreme Court where its case is being pleaded by the BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley. The TV report showed that a CPI(M) legislator was taking up the case of the Chinese firm with the government. He made the point that if this contract posed a security risk then what about that posed by the privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports to international consortia for 30 years at a stretch! Hmmm. _____________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. Goanet mailing list (Goanet@goanet.org)