Operator to restart Delhi airport hospitality plan

New Delhi: The private developer leading modernization of the Capital’s aerodrome, Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), said it will restart a plan to build hotels and malls at the country’s second busiest airport soon, a day after the government’s top legal counsel told the civil aviation ministry the proposal did not contravene rules under which the airport is being privatized.
The ministry, which is opposed to the development of the so-called hospitality district at the airport, said it is still to take a view on the legal advice it had received from the attorney general of India.
Construction of nearly 3,000 hotel rooms for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in about 45 acres of land through private realty developers had been put on the back-burner by DIAL after its differences surfaced with airport regulator Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the civil aviation ministry, which objected to the developer’s plan to finance the modernization by taking deposits against lease contracts in the hospitality ­district.
DIAL still has nearly 200 acres which can be developed on a similar model, while the Mumbai airport, being developed by Mumbai International Airport Ltd under almost similar contractual terms, could also potentially decide to fund airport modernization through deposits around 2010-11 when the occupied airport land is vacated through an ongoing slum relocation programme.
24/11/07 Tarun Shukla/Livemint

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Categories: Airports Nov 2007, New Nov 2007