AAI Recommends Privatisation Of Six More State Run Airports - Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy

The Airports Authority of India (AAI), the nodal agency responsible for creating, upgrading, maintaining and managing state owned civil aviation infrastructure in India, has recommended to Union government to privatise airports at Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy, PTI reported quoting senior government officials.

Earlier this Februrary, the union government privatised airports at Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati for operation, management and development through public-private partnership (PPP) model.

"As six airports have already been privatised in February this year, the AAI in its board meeting on September 5 decided to privatise six more airports: Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy," a senior government official was quoted in the PTI report as saying.

"Once the board took this decision, the recommendation was sent to the Ministry of Civil Aviation," the official added.

The AAI, which works under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, currently manages more than 100 airports across the country.

In February this year, in the first round of airport privatisation, the Adani Group bagged 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 3 July, the Union Cabinet gave its approval on Wednesday to the proposals for leasing out three major airports -- Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru -- of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) through public-private partnership (PPP).

The cabinet nod is awaited on the leasing out of the other three airports - Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram airport. The Adani group had also won the bids to operate these three airports.