New Delhi: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) on Thursday 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.
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.
The AAI will now be appointing a consultant to prepare the bid document, the process is likely to be completed by next year, added sources. Notably, this is the first time the model of clubbing major airports with smaller ones will be used while opting for the PPP model.
Also read: Kerala IUML MP urges Centre to abandon move to privatise Kozhikode Int'l Airport
The Centre had in February 2019 privatised six major airports of the country - Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati - through a competitive bidding process. The Adani group won the rights to run all of them for 50 years.
Outlining the monetisation approach, the government had earlier stated that airports with annual traffic above 4 lakh passengers in FY 2019 and 2020 have been shortlisted under the plant to draw investors' attention.
