Airports privatisation: Bidders shortlisting deadline deferred

The process of privatisation of airports developed by Airports Authority of India (AAI), including those at Kolkata and Chennai, has suffered a setback with the deadline for short-listing of bidders being deferred by almost two months.
Only for the Lucknow airport, the process has been advanced after being deferred earlier, AAI sources said here. The date for announcement of the shortlisted bidders for this airport had been deferred from November 4 to December 15, but advanced once again to November 27.
The dates for the remaining five airports at Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Ahmedabad and Jaipur have all been postponed, they said, adding that the schedule for bidding for these airports would be announced later separately.

The dates for Chennai airport has been deferred from November 4 to December 23, for Kolkata from November 25 to January 20, for Jaipur from November 11 to December 26, Ahmedabad from November 5 to January 6 and Guwahati from November 20 to January 20.
No reason for postponing of the dates has been given by the AAI whose officials have also refused to comment.
Two weeks ago, senior Civil Aviation Ministry officials had expressed hope that the process of privatising these airports would be completed within a time-frame and ahead of the 2014 general elections.
Several private and foreign infrastructure firms like IL&FS Transportation Networks, Essar Projects India, Cochin International Ltd, Essel Infraprojects Ltd, GVK, Fraport, Saudi Arabia, GMR Airports Ltd, Sahara Group and Turkish firm Celebi Habacilik Holding AS, have evinced interest in these airport projects, with their representatives also visiting Chennai airport for site inspection last month.