Saturday, February 11 2006 15:38 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Rejecting charges of scam in the bid process relating to modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said the empowered Group of Ministers 're-evaluated' the markings of the technical bids for increasing number of bidders.

"We wanted to re-evaluate the markings. Eighty per cent was qualify mark from technical and development point of view.

"We did it because otherwise there would have been only one person (bidder) left and the airports are two," Mukherjee, who headed the eGoM, told Karan Thapar in an interview for his on 'Devil's Advocate' programme.

Asked to comment on Left charges that the bid process smacked of a scam, Mukherjee said "they have a totally different perception. They did not want there should be private party involvement.

Therefore, they considered that Airports Authority of India should be entrusted with the job".

The eGoM chairman said there was "no compromise and they (bidders) were chosen taking technical competence as also the financial bids into consideration. The Government's revenue was also considered".

To a question on "changing of the whole (bid) process", he said "what we decided was that at least one who qualifies be chosen and given the option. Exactly, we did that. In any case, this type of bids may go to court. After all, going to court is a fundamental right, and if one is not satisfied, one has to go to court to demand justice".

He said besides technical aspects, "there were other aspects of the financial bids. That is when we reduced the numbers. There were four bidders for each airport. It was not one or two. We had to chose between four."