New Delhi: Minister for Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri said on Thursday that the ministry is expecting to get all the necessary approvals from the government for the privatisation of six more airports in a matter of days and then intends to go ahead with the bidding process as quickly as possible. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently announced the government's plan to privatise six more airports.
Echoing the same, Puri told the media at a press conference on May 21, "This talk about the privatisation of airports has been around for a while. But we have used this situation (Covid-19 pandemic crisis) to push it through. It has been approved by the Cabinet Secretary, it has been recommended by the Empowered Committee, and now we are going to the Cabinet. And I think, it's only a matter of days when we will have all requisite approvals and we intend to do the bidding and other things quickly. Because we believe that we need to be able to spend our way out of this crisis."
Commenting on the matter, the CMD (Chairman and Managing Director) of AAI (Airports Authority of India) Arvind Singh said that the AAI Board of Directors has already approved the privatisation of six more airports — Varanasi, Amritsar, Indore, Bhubaneswar, Raipur and Tiruchirapalli. "The proposal for the privatisation of these six airports has been approved by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and an academic note is being prepared. And it is under consideration. Once the government decides to go ahead, we will start the bidding process," said Singh.
Singh also added, "AAI conducted bids for privatisation of six airports last year, out of which three have already been awarded and we have signed concession agreements. These are airports at Lucknow, Ahmedabad and Trichy. For the remaining three at Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram and Jaipur, there were some litigation issues. But now, the Empowered Group of Secretaries within the government has taken a decision as there is no judicial stay in the matter. So, we are proceeding with the process of awarding the three remaining airports as well."
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