AAI official receives honorary fellowship award

Anuj Aggarwal, member (HR) of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), today received an Honorary Fellowship award from the Centre for Excellence in Project Management (CEPM) at the silver jubilee symposium.

The award was presented to Aggarwal by the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Suresh Prabhu, for the tremendous growth AAI has shown in recent months. Aggarwal believes it was the incorporation of the strong leadership, great ideas, efficient manpower and a project style execution, that has won him and his team this award.

He said, "Since, India is into a growth trajectory and many of the transformations have to take place through a project mindset, each work has to be treated as a project. AAI is witnessing a tremendous growth and we are doing infrastructure development, manpower development and skill development."

"We are doing it in a big way and all these things require a detailed planning in a project style. These are all to be done in a time-bound manner and proper quality. This is what we are doing in AAI. Along with our team and the Ministry of Civil Aviation, we are doing large developments of the airports, infrastructure and manpower, in order to deal with these projects," Aggarwal said.

Currently, India stands at seventh position among the largest global aviation markets. According to International Air Transport Association (IATA), India will displace Germany, Spain, Japan and the UK for the third place globally by 2023.

"Once we are the third largest, we would be sort of a global leader and need to equip ourselves, both in terms of infrastructure, as well as manpower to be a world leader," Aggarwal added.

India has taken giant strides in domestic civil aviation, with a growth rate of 21.5 percent per annum in the last two years. It is only behind the US and China in the race.

The Airports Authority of India manages 125 airports, which include 18 international airports and 78 domestic airports. Many new airports are coming up, which will help to improve air connectivity in the future.