Chennai: To privatise or not to privatise, that is the question. Shakespearean prose may seem out of place in the power corridors of the Civil Aviation Ministry, but it’s a conundrum that has risen again with respect to the city airport. Less than two months after the MoCA removed Chennai and Kolkata airports from the list of airports to be privatised, it seems to have changed its mind again.
A notice calling for interested parties to bid and take over operations of six airports, including Chennai, was issued by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) late on Tuesday night — with a hastened last date for receiving applications — March 24, 2015. The move comes as a blow to AAI’s management team at the Chennai Airport, which has been working on its proposal to operate the airport without private concessionaire. Slated to make its presentation when the comments to the draft civil aviation policy are heard on January 15, the team finds itself between a rock and a hard place.
“When we heard about it a week ago, we were as we had been appointing independent contractors since they said we would have to run this airport. Now it looks as though they have changed their mind, or else they could have simply waited another 15 days,” said an official.
01/12/14 Daniel Thimmayya/New Indian Express
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A notice calling for interested parties to bid and take over operations of six airports, including Chennai, was issued by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) late on Tuesday night — with a hastened last date for receiving applications — March 24, 2015. The move comes as a blow to AAI’s management team at the Chennai Airport, which has been working on its proposal to operate the airport without private concessionaire. Slated to make its presentation when the comments to the draft civil aviation policy are heard on January 15, the team finds itself between a rock and a hard place.
“When we heard about it a week ago, we were as we had been appointing independent contractors since they said we would have to run this airport. Now it looks as though they have changed their mind, or else they could have simply waited another 15 days,” said an official.
01/12/14 Daniel Thimmayya/New Indian Express
