AAI Recommends Privatisation Of Six Airports Including Amritsar, Varanasi
Adani Group recently bagged contracts to develop airports at Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Trivandrum and Guwahati.
The Airports Authority of India has recommended to the government privatisation of six airports, including those at Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Tiruchirappalli, a senior government official said on Sunday.
The recommendation follows recent privatisation of airports at Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati for operation, management and development through public-private partnership model in February this year.
"As six airports have already been privatised in February this year, the AAI in its board meeting on Sept. 5 decided to privatise six more airports—Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy," the official said. "Once the board took this decision, the recommendation was sent to the Ministry of Civil Aviation."
The AAI, which works under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, owns and manages more than 100 airports across the country. In February this year, in the first round of airport privatisation, Adani Group bagged contract for all six airports. The AAI had chosen the winner on the basis of the "per-passenger fee" offered by the bidders.
On July 3, the Union Cabinet had approved leasing out of Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangalore airports to Adani Group. The cabinet is yet to approve the leasing out of the other three.