Guwahati, August 19: The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has approved the proposal for leasing out three airports in Guwahati, Jaipur and Thiruvananthapuram of Airports Authority of India (AAI) through Public Private Partnership (PPP).
The airports are being leased out to M/s Adani Enterprises Ltd for a period of 50 years for Operation, Management and Development . M/s Adani Enterprises has been declared as the successful bidder in a Global Competitive Bidding (GCB).
These projects will bring efficiency in service delivery, expertise, enterprise and professionalism apart from harnessing the needed investments in the public sector.
Government had earlier leased out the Airports Authority of India’s airports at Delhi and Mumbai on PPP for Operation, Management and Development about a decade ago.
While these PPP experiments have helped create world class airports and helped in delivery of efficient and quality services to the airport passengers, it has also helped AAI in enhancing its revenues and focusing on developing airports and Air Navigation infrastructure in the rest of the country. Revenue received by AAI from PPP partners enabled AAI to create infrastructure facilities in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities and also to upgrade their airports to international standards. The PPP airports in India are consistently ranked among the top 5 in their respective categories by the Airports Council International (ACI) in terms of Airport Service Quality (ASQ).
Therefore, Government decided to lease out more airports of AAI for Operation, Management and Development under PPP through Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC). Government also constituted an Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) to decide on any issue falling beyond the scope of PPPAC.
