Kozhikode: Indian Union Muslim League on Wednesday demanded the Centre to retract the move to privatise Kozhikode International Airport as part of the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) announced by Union Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman. IUML MP, ET Muhammed Basheer, in his letter to Civil Aviation Minister Jyothiraditya Sindya, demanded that the Central government should abandon the move to privatise the airport, which, despite the commissioning of Kannur International Airport, has been operating profitably.
Further, Basheer said the move to privatise the airport would hamper its development prospects. He also added that the privatisation bid has raised concerns among people of Malabar who depend on the airport for their international as well as domestic travel.
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Basheer, in his letter, pointed out that during the 2018-2019 financial year, 27,48,275 international passengers and 6,12,579 domestic passengers availed the services of Kozhikode International Airport.
In comparison to the 2017-2018 financial year, there was an increase of 7 per cent in passenger traffic and the airport earned a revenue of Rs 250 crore. A major portion of the revenue was profit and there are currently 240 employees working in the airport. The central government should consider all these factors before handing out the airport operations to private parties, Basheer urged.
Sitharaman, earlier, announced a National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) worth Rs 6 lakh crore involving private companies across manufacturing sectors. Private players would be included in various sectors from passenger trains and railway stations to airports, roads and stadiums.
Till now, 25 Airports Authority of India (AAI) airports, including those at Chennai, Bhopal, Varanasi and Vadodara, as well as 40 railway stations, and 15 railway stadiums, 8,000-kilometre GAIL pipeline, 4,000 km petroleum pipeline, 2.86 lakh kilometre of telecom network, Rs 29,000 crore warehousing, Rs 13,000 crores ports have been recognised for inviting private investments.
