Aviation Ministry floats cabinet note for Bengaluru, Hyderabad airports' stake sale

The government has decided to start exiting the joint venture airports as the Ministry of Civil Aviation has floated a cabinet note, seeking the nod to divest the Airports Authority of India's (AAI) stake it holds in Bengaluru and Hyderabad airports.

New Delhi: The government has decided to start exiting the joint venture airports as the Ministry of Civil Aviation has floated a cabinet note, seeking the nod to divest the Airports Authority of India's (AAI) stake it holds in Bengaluru and Hyderabad airports.

The government aims to sell its stake in the four joint venture metro airports of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The AAI holds a 13% stake each in Bengaluru and Hyderabad airports and a 26% stake each in Delhi and Mumbai airports. In the first phase, the AAI will divest the stake of Bengaluru and Hyderabad airports, said government sources.

"The AAI is working on the appointment of a transaction advisor to conduct an evaluation of AAI's stake in the two airports in which Prem Watsa-owned Fairfax group and Delhi based GMR infrastructure holds the largest stake," a person aware of the matter said.

Recently, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) approved the privatisation of 13 more airports by next year under the national monetisation plan which aims to generate Rs 3,660 crore of private investment into the airports by FY 2024.

Read: Government gives approval to privatise 13 airports

According to government officials, among the selected airports, six majors ones- Amritsar, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur, Trichy and Varanasi
and seven smaller ones- Hubli, Tirupati, Aurangabad, Jabalpur, Kangra, Kushinagar and Gaya will be clubbed together.

In FY23, the government plans to monetise eight airports, including Calicut, Coimbatore, Nagpur, Patna, Madurai, Surat, Ranchi, and Jodhpur. In FY24, another six airports will be monetised in Chennai, Vijayawada, Tirupati, Vadodara, Bhopal and Hubli.

Under the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), the government is set to monetise 25 airports managed by the AAI over the next four years, which could bring in investments worth Rs 20,782 crore. The total airport assets for monetization account for 18% of the overall airport assets under the management of the AAI.

Read: Centre to develop four airports, launch 50 UDAN routes in next 100 days