Six airports were recommended by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for the privatization to the centre including Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy, a senior government official told.
In February this year, airports at Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati were privatised for operation, management, and development through public-private partnership (PPP) model.
“As six airports have already been privatised in February this year, the AAI in its board meeting on September 5 decided to privatise six more airports: Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy,” a senior government official told news agency PTI.
“Once the board took this decision, the recommendation was sent to the Ministry of Civil Aviation,” the official added.
There are over 100 airports that come under the authority of the Airports Authority of India, which works under the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
In the first round of privatisation of the airports, the contract for all the six airports was bagged by Adani Group by winning the bids with huge margins.
The AAI goes through different bids on the per-passenger fee on which it gives the contract to the lowest bidder.
Out of the six airports, on July 3 the Union Cabinet had approved the leasing out of Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangalore airports to Adani Group while the leasing of the other three is yet to be approved by the cabinet.
(With inputs from PTI)