New Delhi: The airports under the Airports Authority of India (AAI) are being leased out in public interest and the revenue received by AAI from the leased airports is utilized in the development of airport infrastructure in the country, MoS, Civil Aviation General (Retd) Dr V K Singh informed the Rajya Sabha on Monday.
The Union Ministers in a written reply further stated that the states and passengers are the "ultimate beneficiaries" of the improved airport infrastructure and facilities created by private partner operating the leased airports under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.
" Airports of AAI are leased out in public interest for their better management utilizing private sector efficiency and investment. States and passengers are the ultimate beneficiary of enhanced airport infrastructure and facilities created by private partner, who operates, manages and develops the leased airport under PPP," stated Singh.
"Airports have emerged as a nucleus of economic activities and have multiplier effect on the economy of the State. The revenue received by AAI from the leased airports is also utilized in development of airport infrastructure across the country," he added.
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The Union Minister also said that while AAI has leased eight airport under the PPP model it has earmarked 25 other airports for leasing over the years 2022 to 2025. He said that currently there are 146 operational airports, water aerodromes and heliports adding that till 2014, there were 74 operational airports in the country.
The 13 PPP airports are Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Cochin, Kannur and Durgapur. In FY 2020-21, Delhi and Mumbai airports reported a loss of Rs 317.41 crore and Rs 331.64 crore, respectively, as per the data provided by the minister in the House.
As per National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), 25 airports of AAI have been earmarked for leasing over the 2022-25 period. "For the construction and upgradation of airports, AAI has incurred capex of Rs 2,504.38 crore in 2017-18, Rs 4,297.44 crore in 2018-19, Rs 4,713.49 crore in 2019-20, Rs 4,350 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 3,724.34 crore in 2021-22," Singh said.
The Union Minister in a separate reply said that various steps, including the opening of two additional entry gates for passengers and deployment of additional CISF manpower, have been taken to ease congestion at Delhi airport.
In recent weeks, passengers faced long waiting hours at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here due to congestion but the situation has eased now. Singh listed out the steps taken for decongestion of the airport, including monitoring through CCTV and command centre as well as using a count meter for crowd management.
"Airport operator advised to reduce flights during the peak hour at T3 or shift them to other two terminals... airlines advised to deploy sufficient manpower at all check-in/baggage drop counters," he said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
Air travellers are encouraged to use DigiYatra, the biometric-enabled seamless travel experience based on Facial Recognition Technology, and airlines have been advised to have "full compliance to barcode on tickets issued to help easy flow of passengers at entry/security gates," he said.
Apart from opening two additional entry gates for passengers at Terminal 3 (T3) and deploying of additional CISF manpower, the minister said additional X-ray machines for baggage check are being deployed, among other measures.
