After studying how Lalu Prasad turned around the Railways, researchers at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, now find the country's airport revamp fascinating enough to study. The B-school will bring out a case study on the bidding process for the modernisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports.

"Revamping existing airports through privatisation is new to India. Hence, studying the process involved in privatisation becomes interesting," says professor G Raghuram of IIM-A, who is jointly working on the case study along with fellow IIM-A faculty Rekha Jain.

The project will zoom in on issues like transparency and the weightage given to the technical and financial component. "These issues are also important from the management perspective," Mr Raghuram adds.

The privatisation of the two airports has, of late, kicked up much dust. While Anil Ambani's R-ADAG has moved court saying it was overlooked despite submitting better financial and technical bids, others dumped the project mid-way.

"It is interesting that technical aspects were given top most priority. Earlier, it was feared that players could vie for the project by giving lower financial bids. However, the government allowed technically-qualified bidders to match the lower financial bids," points out Mr Raghuram.

Though the matter is still pending in the court, the airports have been handed over to the successful bidders and the work has commenced. On August 3, both GMR Infrastructure and GVK took full control of the Delhi and Mumbai airport, respectively.

The study will also dwell on how a few leading players could not make it in the first round itself and efforts were made to influence the government to redefine the parameters.

"When the competence of the consultant was questioned by a few, the move to appoint a consultant and involve international players was a smart move," Mr Raghuram contends, as if to back the government's gambit.

The privatisation method has had is share of criticisms, though. It has drawn flak on a few stringent requirements like charging penalty on delayed baggage delivery.

The case study will be registered at the institute in a month's time as part of the formulations from Centre for Infrastructure Policy and Regulation, which was set up by the institute in June to promote research and training in infrastructure.