5 Airports for Rs 63 Crore: Anil Ambani Lands a Deal

Mumbai: The Anil Ambani led Reliance Airport Developers Ltd is on its way to picking up five airports in rural Maharashtra on a 95-year lease for a total of only Rs 63 crore from the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation.
Government officials told TOI on Wednesday that MIDC passed the proposal last week and recommended to the state that Yavatmal, Nanded, Latur, Osmanabad and Baramati airports be leased. MIDC officials said they could have got a higher price in a better economy but industries secretary A M Khan said the government was satisfied with the price it was getting.
Besides allowing Yavatmal , Nanded, Latur, Osmanabad and Baramati airports to be leased for 95 years to the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Airport Developers for Rs 63 crore, MIDC has also allowed construction of a greenfield airport at Chipi in Sindhudurg , by IRB, the company that collects toll at Mumbai nakas. This land, too, has been given on lease for 95 years at a cost of Rs 21 crore.
MIDC insiders said all the airports being leased out had come up because some ministers wanted airports in their hometowns. The Nanded airport was extended at a cost of Rs 110 crore only last year, and the one in Latur was refurbished by the MIDC at a cost of Rs 25 crore. But there has been little by way of operations at either airport. Yavatmal and Osmanabad have had no commercial operation so far.
07/08/09 Yogesh Naik/Economic Times

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Categories: Airports Aug 2009, Merchant Airports Aug 2009, New Aug 2009