TLI Staff
New Delhi: Even as it faces attack from all quarters over privatisation, the Centre has prepared another list of airports for asset monetisation.
Civil Aviation Secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola has told a high-level government panel that the Ministry is in the process of identifying additional 6-7 airports in tier-II and tier-III towns which can also be offered to private parties along with the second bundle of six airports for which draft cabinet note had been circulated last year.
The new set of airports includes Patna, Agartala, Coimbatore, Jammu and Bhopal. The development has come in the middle of simmering anger against the government over enacting farm bills despite opposition walk-out from Parliament and opposition parties taking it in the firing line over aggressive plan to sell public sector companies.
As per recordings of the meeting, seen by Top Lead India, Kharola last month informed the Core Group of Secretaries on Asset Monetization (CGAM) that all the identified airports could be bundled together and offered to private parties for control and management.
“With respect to Round-2 of airports in Tier 2 and 3 cities, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) informed that a draft cabinet note was circulated regarding the monetization of six airports in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. However, MoCA is also in process of identifying additional 6-7 airport assets which can be bundled with the above-mentioned assets in Tier 2 and 3 cities,” an official source quoted the minutes of the CGAM meeting as saying.
The government has set the target of bidding out the airports by March, 2021.
The Board of public sector Airports Authority of India (AAI) had last year cleared a proposal to bid out six airports Trichy, Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Raipur and Indore on public private partnership (PPP) basis.
Following this, the Aviation Ministry took views from the key departments and circulated a draft cabinet note. There has, however, been slow movement on that due to Coronavirus pandemic.
Also, there are fears that private sector may not be interested in the bidding given bleak aviation outlook. But facing severe revenue shortfall, the government is looking at asset sale as major source of fund mobilisation.
It may be noted that the six airports for which Gujarat-based Adani had won the bids are yet to be taken over by the diversified business conglomerate. While in case of three airports — Ahmedabad, Mangaluru and Lucknow, Adani had sought more for takeover citing Coronavirus, the formalities regarding the other three airports Jaipur, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram are yet to be completed.
AAI unions have consistently opposed the government’s privatisation drive and alleged that they were not consulted before the plan was kicked off.