New Delhi: The board of Airport Authority of India has given approval to privatise 13 airports- the first major asset monetisation exercise by the government as part of the National Monetisation Pipeline by which government aims to generate Rs 3,660 crore of private investment into the airports by FY 24.
Sources said that the AAI board has approved to privatise six major airports- Bhubaneshwar, Varanasi, Amritsar, Trichy, Indore, Raipur and seven smaller airports- Jharsuguda, Gaya, Kushinagar, Kangra, Tirupati, Jabalpur and Jalgaon airports which will be clubbed with the six airports in order to entice investors with high scale and size.
AAI will now appoint a consultant to prepare the bid document which will determine the concession period and reserve price. The bids are likely to be called by early 2022.
While Jharsuguda airport will be bundled with Bhubaneswar, Kushinagar and Gaya airports will be clubbed with Varanasi, Kangra, Amritsar, Jalgaon and Trichy airports will be clubbed with Raipur Jabalpur, Indore, and Tirupati airports respectively.
In the last round of privatisation, Adani group bid aggressively to win all six airports- Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram, Mangaluru, and Guwahati. The bid amount in some cases was double that of the second highest bid.
