Process of privatising 6 airports postponed again

The process of privatising six airports developed by Airports Authority of India (AAI) including Kolkata and Chennai has once again been postponed to the middle of next month, putting a question mark on the entire project.
The due date of application for the Request for Qualification has been pushed to February 17 from this month end for four airports at Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow and Guwahati and from February 12 for Jaipur and Ahmedabad.
While the last date for Chennai and Lucknow airports was January 28, it was January 30 for Kolkata and Guwahati.
An official, however, said the government could still be in a position to shortlist and select the bidders for these airports before the Model Code of Conduct for the Lok Sabha polls comes into force. Government cannot take any policy decision once the code is in place.

In order to fast-track the privatisation of the airports, government had invited applications from the private sector in September last year, marking a major policy shift.
But in November, the process had been postponed by two months till January.

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.
All these six airports have already been modernised by state-run AAI at a high cost to the exchequer. The modernisation of Kolkata and Chennai airports had cost the AAI Rs 2,325 crore and Rs 2,015 crore respectively.

The move has come under severe criticism from several quarters, including AAI employees, trade unions, some political parties, airlines and their global representative body, International Air Transport Association.
The privatisation plans also received a blow with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture adopting a report opposing the move and advocating long-term management contracts instead of leasing the airports out to private parties for three decades.