Maharashtra's City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) has extended again the deadline to submit qualification documents for the Navi Mumbai International Airport PPP project.

CIDCO issued the tender process in February and had fixed June 18 as the date of submission of RFQs.

The deadline was, however, extended first to July 30 and second to 2 September 2014. This time the deadline has been extended to 30 October 2014.

According to sources six companies, including Spain's Ferrovial, Munich Airport, Tata Realty and Infrastructure (Tata Group), IL&FS and Essel Infrastructure, wrote to CIDCO for an extension.

According to sources, Ferrovial said while its negotiations with a local partner had progressed, it wasn't feasible enough to reach an agreement with them before the application due date in September.

Tata Realty and Infrastructure was preparing a possible joint venture with Heathrow Airport's biggest shareholder, Ferrovial. Both Ferrovial and Tata Realty are among the 20 companies that participated in a pre-bid meeting held by the CIDCO on April 2.

Representatives of Zurich Airport, Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), Srei Infrastructure Finance,Samsung C&T, IL&FS, GMR Group, Shakat Aviation, Walnut Aviation, Essel Infrastructure, IRB Infrastructure Developers, Tata Projects (Tata Group) and Vinci Concessions India were also present.

Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) - the GVK-led operator of Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport - will have first refusal on the contract. MIAL will qualify automatically for bidding, subject to satisfactory performance at the existing airport, and will have the opportunity to match any opposing bid if its financial proposal is not more than 10% lower than the highest offer.

The project cost is estimated at Rs145 billion (US$2,416 million) by the second stage - at which point capacity will reach 25 million passengers.

The Navi Mumbai airport project will be developed on 1,160 hectares. It is expected to have a yearly capacity of 60 million passengers. The new airport is intended to relieve capacity pressure on the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, where air traffic demand is projected to exceed 40 million annual passengers by 2017 and 100 million passengers by 2030.

The government had given an initial approval to set up the airport in 2007. It was scheduled to be completed by 2015 but is now aimed to be operational by December 2018.