Saturday, January 14 2006 11:51 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: All formalities pertaining to award of final bids for Mumbai and Delhi airports modernisation would be finalised by this month-end, Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said yesterday (Jan 13,2006).

"By January 31, all formalities will be completed.We will finalise the joint venture partner by January 31," he told reporters here.

An Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), which met on Thursday had asked for some clarification from the E Sreedharan committee on evaluation of bids and procedures for the Rs 5,400 crore modernisation plan of the two metro airports.

EGoM is expected to meet on January 24 to discuss the issue.

Sreedharan committee, which was set up to re-evaluate the bids for modernising the two metro airports, has submitted its report to the cabinet secretary recently.

The committee reportedly eliminated consortium led byReliance by downgrading its bid and endorsed the airports authority of India's proposal to form a special purpose vehicle for the modernisation programme.