Adani to operate Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru airports
04 Jul 2019
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The union cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for leasing out of three airports, viz, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru, currently operated by Airports Authority of India (AAI) through public private partnership (PPP) to Adani Enterprises Ltd.
The cabinet, however deferred a decision on awarding the lease rights of the Thiruvananthapuram, Jaipur and Guwahati airports to Adani group.
The union cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the proposal for leasing out of three airports, viz, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru of Airports Authority of India (AAI) through Public Private Partnership (PPP) to Adani Enterprises Ltd.
Adani had quoted the highest revenue per passenger for all six airports, including Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram, Mangaluru and Guwahati, being leased out by the AAI, for operation, management and development under PPP for a lease period of 50 years.
“These projects will bring efficiency in delivery, expertise, enterprise and professionalism apart from harnessing the needed investments in the public sector. This will also result in enhanced revenues to the AAI, which may lead to further investment by AAI at Tier II and Tier III cities and economic development in these areas in terms of job creation and related infrastructure,” a cabinet release stated.
Bids for the Guwahati airport were opened later after a stay granted by the Guwahati High Court against the privatisation process was lifted.
Under the single stage bidding process, the winning bid is decided on the basis of the highest monthly per-passenger fee that the concessionaire will offer to the AAI. Against this, AAI had followed a revenue-sharing model for the existing privatised airports such as Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Besides KSIDC bidding for the Thiruvananthapuram airport, others in the running included the GMR Group, National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), Fairfax India Holdings Corporation, Australia’s AMP Capital and PNC Infratech Ltd.
Ahmedabad-based Adani Group is one of India’s largest integrated infrastructure conglomerates with interests in natural resources (coal mining and trading), logistics (ports, logistics, shipping and rail), energy (renewable and thermal power generation, transmission and distribution), and agro (commodities, edible oil, food products, cold storage and grain silos), real estate, public transport infrastructure, consumer finance and defence.
