New Delhi, Jan. 24: The group of ministers on airports today decided against calling fresh bids for privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports. The existing bids would be opened in a few days and contracts awarded by the month-end.

?Everything has been sorted out and a final decision taken,? civil aviation minister Praful Patel said. But he refused to spell out the formula or name the consortia? whose financial bids would be taken up. He said the minutes of meeting were yet to be signed by the head of the GoM, defence minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Sources said three consortia would be evaluated for each city. Financial bids by Reliance-ASA Mexico, GMR-Fraport and DS-Munich may be taken up for Delhi, while those by Reliance, GMR and GVK-Airports South Africa are likely to be considered for Mumbai. Therefore, four bidders will be left in the fray out of six who had put in bids and eight who were pre-qualified.

The Left, which has been demanding scrapping of the bidding process, was obviously furious. Left leaders had complained of a lack of transparency and hinted at a possible collusion between the legal and technical advisers to the bidding and some of the bidders.

?I think it is one of the most non-transparent decisions. It is extremely bad and goes against even what the Congress government had earlier told us on this issue,? said Nilotpal Basu, CPM leader and chairman of the standing committee on transport.

The decision also goes against the Sreedharan committee?s suggestion of handing over the project to special purpose vehicles jointly run by Airports Authority of India and foreign partners. It was also in favour of a limited re-bid.

The Sreedharan report had pointed out that most of the top international airport developers had stayed away.

The bidders for Delhi and Mumbai are GMR-Fraport (Frankfurt), Reliance-ASA (of Mexico), DS Construction-Munich (Flughagen Munchen GmbH), Macquarie-ADP (Aeroports de Paris) and Pan Parayatan-TAV (a Turkey-based airport operator). GVK-ACSA (Airports Company South Africa) had put in bids only for Mumbai airport.

Sources said there was intense diplomatic pressure from the countries representing foreign partners in the bidding consortia to continue with the selection process. Officials added scrapping the bidding process may have entailed huge legal costs with unsuccessful bidders seeking redressal. But critics within the government said that going ahead with the flawed bidding could also lead to legal cases which could hold up development.