NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 2
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has recommended privatisation of six more airports across the nation, a senior official said.
According to sources, the airports recommended for privatisation by AAI are – Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu, Amritsar in Punjab, Bhubaneswar in Odisha, Indore (MP), and Raipur (Chhattisgarh).
This follows suit following the privatisation of airports at Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati for operation, management and development through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode during February this year.
Besides the six airports privatised already, the AAI Board meeting held during the first week of September had decided to privatise six more airports across the country. The recommendations of the board were sent to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. The AII owns and manages over 100 airports in the country.
During the first round of airport privatisation in the present NDA regime, the Adani Group bagged the contract for all six airports by winning the bids with huge margins. 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 the leasing out of Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangalore airports to Adani Group. The Cabinet is yet to approve the leasing out of the other three.
Earlier, under the UPA four airports – Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore were privatised.
Joint forum of AAI Unions protest privatization move
Protesting against the privatization bid, the joint forum of AAI unions and associations took out a march at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar recently. The forum comprises the Airports Authority of India (AAI) Employees Union, Airports Authority Officers Association and Indian Airports Kamgar Union. It alleges that the government has “unilaterally” decided to privatise dozens of profit-making airports, which is neither in public interest nor for better management of these aerodromes, sources in the forum said.
