20-25 airports to get privatised in next phase: AAI chairman

Guruprasad Mohapatra, Chairman, Airports Authority of India (AAI) has said that the government is working on a proposal to privatise 20-25 airports, managed and operated by the authority and a final decision will soon be taken. “We have privatised six airports recently. We are now planning to privatise 20-25 airports in next phase with an expectation that there will be a significant participation by foreign airports. The Airports Authority of India is in the process of identifying airports with annual passenger traffic of 1-1.5 million. We will recommend them to the Ministry of Civil Aviation and they will take a final decision,” said Mohapatra in a press briefing.

Explaining about the planning related to the second round of privatisation, he said, “What we have done is we have appointed a consultant to understand relative attractiveness of various airports for private sector investments. It is open for everyone to bid. There are tremendous possibilities. With this (success in first round), I am sure that in the next round of privatisation we do, I am hoping to see a lot of foreign airports participating in it.”

In November last year, the government had decided to privatise airports in Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati for operation, management and development through public-private partnership (PPP) model.