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Lead Story
DIAL gears up for hotel district at Delhi airport
Calls for bids from management companies, consortiums
Sanjeev Bhar - New Delhi
 The
Delhi International Airport (DIAL) has revived its plans for a hotel district,
which got delayed last year due to legal hurdles. Arun Arora, associate VP (corporate
communications) of GMR-DIAL, informed, "We have called for bids from hospitality
companies for construction of hotels on the land owned by AAI along the national
highway, adjacent to the airport and connecting the metro expressway that is
under construction at the moment." The hotels are expected to cover all
categories, from economy to premium.
DIAL has issued an EoI (Expression of Interest) for bidding for multiple plots
for individual and group bidders. "Since the objective is to provide world
class facilities, the selection of the bidding party will be based on the expertise
to manage and run a hotel. Developers without any hospitality experience can
form a consortium with management companies and jointly bid for plots to be
managed," Arora informed. He even said that there should not be any legal
hurdle if two hotel companies after winning bids wish to enter into a joint
venture. According to Arora, DIAL was looking at constructing about 3,000 rooms
for the Commonwealth Games. "Now we have lost one year and expect the number
of rooms constructed to come down. Yet we look forward to accommodating as many
rooms with the developers once they are selected," he says. There will
be a restriction on the height of the hotel (28 metres) and FAR for such developments
will be 2.5, he added. The current traffic flow per day is 70,000 passengers
which is expected to go up significantly in the next three years once the passenger
handling capacity improves. "Therefore, upcoming hotels in this district
can expect healthy occupancies and ARRs," adds Arora.
| Joy Roy Choudhury - Kolkata
Kolkata-based Kenilworth Group of Hotels has said
it wants to expand by setting up its third property in New Delhi at the
Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport site in the NCR region. Raju
Bharat, its MD, said, "Though there are no definite plans yet, we
are seriously exploring possibilities of setting up a star category hotel
at the airport site. We will finalise the details and the quantum of investments
once we get the land." DIAL recently invited proposals from qualified
consortiums/individual concerns with minimum net worth of Rs 50 crore
for development of hotels and commercial space at the IGI airport site.
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DIAL, which came about as a consortium of five companies - GMR Group (50.1
per cent), AAI (26 per cent), Fraport AG (10 per cent), Eraman Malaysia (10
per cent) and India Development Fund, an IDF-AMC managed fund (3.9 per cent)
- that entered into an agreement with the government to use five per cent of
the 5,000 acres of airport land for commercial purposes. "In the first
phase, we are releasing 65 acres out of 250 acres of the allocated land for
bids where hotels will be constructed in a built-up area of 45 acres.”
Since DIAL has an agreement of 30 years (extendable by another 30 years), the
hotel management contracts with the bidders would be of 27 to 30 years provided
the entire process begins next year. Through these bids, DIAL would raise about
half of the capital of Rs 2,750 crore as security amount to finance a part of
the Rs 9,000 crore airport's phase I expected to be complete by 2010. The winning
bidders will have to shell out a one-time security deposit fee and lease rentals
to carry on the hotel operations.
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