Centre may take decision on privatization of 6 airports in Cabinet meeting on August 19

New Delhi: The government is likely to take a major decision on airport privatization in its scheduled cabinet meeting on Wednesday (August 19). The cabinet may approve the privatization of six airports including Amritsar, Indore, Ranchi, Trichy, Bhubaneshwar, and Raipur. After the cabinet approval, the bidding process for the privatization of these six airports will begin this year itself.

The Modi government had earlier decided to privatize 12 airports of the Airport Authority. The decision on privatisation of six airports of Ahmadabad, Mangalore, Lucknow, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, and Jaipur have already been taken in the first phase.

Adani Enterprises got all these airports through the highest bid in the bidding process. The Adani firm signed the concessionaire agreement with the AAI for three airports - Ahmedabad, Mangaluru, and Lucknow - on February 14, 2020, and it is yet to sign the concessionaire agreement for the other three airports.

Earlier in May this year, the PMO held a review meeting of the Divestment and Privatization status and directed that within three months, privatization of teh remaining 6 airports has to be accomplished. The deadline for the same is over by August 15.

Ministry of Civil Aviation will place a proposal for "further" privatisation of airports before the Union Cabinet, said Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

In the first round of privatisation, the airports in Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati were cleared for operation, management and development through public-private partnership (PPP) model in February 2019.

In September 2019, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) had recommended the Civil Aviation Ministry to privatise airports in Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy.

During a webinar today, Puri said, "We are going to the Cabinet tomorrow for further airport privatisation. We have got many more airports lined up, dozens of them, and the 100 new airports we will build between now and 2030."

The AAI, which works under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, owns and manages more than 100 airports across the country.
Adani Enterprises had won the rights to run six airports -- Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati -- after a competitive bidding process in February 2019.

Adani Enterprises signed the concessionaire agreement with the AAI for three airports - Ahmedabad, Mangaluru and Lucknow - on February 14, 2020. It is yet to sign the concessionaire agreement for the other three airports.

In June this year, the AAI gave three more months to the Adani group to take over the management of the airports of Ahmedabad, Mangaluru and Lucknow due to the COVID-19 scenario. This means the Adani group, which was expected to take over the operations, management and development of the three airports by August 12, can now take over the airports by November 12.

Notably, Airlines in India are currently permitted to operate 45 per cent of their pre-COVID domestic flights, but International passenger flights continue to remain suspended in the country.