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Government grapples with 'security' aspect of foreign firms' bids

Ajay Singh

The ministries of home affairs and civil aviation will hold a joint meeting of top officials to specify guidelines on bidding in strategic sectors like civil aviation. Essentially, the meeting would look at ways to prevent international companies, considered to be inimical to the country's security interests, from bidding in these sectors.

The problem cropped up when the Airport Authority of India invited international bidders for the installation of 39 x-ray machines in airports all over the country. A Chinese company-the Beijing Zhongdun Security Technology Development Company -was found to have quoted the lowest from among five bidders.

This set alarm bells ringing in the civil aviation ministry which rushed to the home ministry to seek its direction in view of the fact that these machines were to be installed at the Srinagar and Leh airports, apart from certain other airports in the north east. Given the strategic interests of China in this region, the ministry felt it could not use its discretion.

Highly placed sources in the government said that the home ministry was particularly concerned over the possibility of installation of a Chinese machine in Leh and Srinagar as it would enable Chinese access to the region bordering Tibet and close to the international border with China. The bidder was required not just to install but also service and maintain the machines.

Official sources admit that though the whole project is to cost only around Rs 65 million, it assumes significance for strategic reasons.

Sources in the government maintain that taking cognisance of all these facts, the home ministry advised the civil aviation ministry against considering the Chinese company in the bidding. The BZSTD company was, therefore, dropped from the list of eligible bidders.

Though the AAI has awarded the contract to a Canadian firm, Heimann, which was the next lowest bidder after the Chinese, the whole controversy is threatening to snowball into a diplomatic crisis.

Sources say that the Chinese company has gone to court to seek reasons for its exclusion from the bidding. AAI officials maintain that it was the sole discretion of the AAI to drop any bidder on the "eligibility criteria".

But the whole issue has prompted the civil aviation ministry to seek a clearly defined guidelines from the home ministry to devise the method by which those international bidders, considered hostile to the country's interests can be screened at the initial stage.

Civil aviation minister Sharad Yadav is believed to have taken up the issue with the home minister LK Advani as his ministry-- civil aviation-- is considered to be strategically most important.

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