13 Airports to be privatized by March, list sent to aviation ministry

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• Oct 27, 2021 | Deleted

New Delhi: In a bid to privatize 13 airports run by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the central government has sent the lists to complete the entire process by the end of this fiscal year.

AAI chairman Sanjeev Kumar said to Economic Times, "We have sent a list of 13 airports to the aviation ministry that is to be bid out on PPP (public-private partnership). The plan is to complete the bidding of these airports by the end of this fiscal year."

Further, Kumar claimed that there would be no shortage of bidders even in pandemic as its effects are short, whereas the airports are leased for 50 years.

Reportedly, the model to be followed for the bidding would be the per passenger's revenue model, followed in the previous bidding process for the airports.

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Moreover, the government has decided to merge seven small airports with six big ones, including Varanasi with Kushinagar and Gaya; Amritsar with Kangra; Bhubaneswar with Tirupati; Raipur with Aurangabad; Indore with Jabalpur; and Trichy with Hubli.

As part of the National Monetization Pipeline (NMP), the central government plans to award 25 airports in the coming four years, including the 13 privatized airports. In 2019, the centre awarded six airports to the Adani Group, including the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport.

According to sources, the AAI mandate will be expanded to construct new airports where private sectors do not want to advance through profits earned through revenue shares from the privatized airports.

Since the pandemic hits the nation, the AAI earnings face a huge loss compelling it to borrow Rs. 1,500 crores from the State Bank of India to meet working capital needs, including salaries. As per the official report, AAI records a loss of 1,962 crores in the Fiscal Year 2021.