AAI to invite four airport development bids

New Delhi: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is finally ready with the tender documents for inviting bids for city-side development of four non-metro airports: Lucknow, Jaipur, Amritsar and Udaipur.
The move comes after months of delay in awarding city-side development works -- the ministry of civil aviation is targeting development of at least 24 non-metro airports.
If work at these four airports begins soon, the AAI would have succeeded in at least partially offsetting its losses. A senior AAI official said the work is unlikely to be awarded to one contractor, as earlier thought, and the tender makes it clear that the bidders will not have any revenue sharing with AAI and that land would be given out only on rent basis on a 30-year lease. He declined to provide an estimate of how much revenue generation is being targeted through the award of contracts for these four airports.
The official said that eventually, AAI would try and develop city-side area for six more airports (outside the designated 24 non-metro ones) to further improve revenue generation. AAI's revenue enhancing move assumes significance since it comes close on the heels of government's plans to corporatise the AAI. The ministry plans to corporatise AAI by March next year before eventually listing it on the bourses.
AAI owns and manages the largest number of airports across the country and has been seeking as much as Rs 12,000 crore during the 11th Five-Year Plan for modernisation and development of 34 non-metro airports during the plan period. Corporatisation is expected to help the cash-strapped body raise more funds.
21/09/09 Sindhu Bhattacharya/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Airports Sep 2009