Union Cabinet gives nod for leasing out Guwahati airport through PPP

Guwahati: Guwahati's Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi Airport (LGBI) is among the 3 airports that the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved for leasing out through public-private partnership (PPP). The airports at Jaipur and Thiruvananthapuram are the other two.

Currently, the airports are owned and managed by the government-run Airports Authority of India (AAI).

This was announced at a press conference on Wednesday by Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar who said the Cabinet has approved the proposal for leasing out the Jaipur, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram airports through the PPP model.

Adani Enterprises had won the rights to run six airports - Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati - through the PPP model after a competitive bidding process in February 2019.

Months later, in July 2019, the Union Cabinet had approved the proposal for leasing out the other three airports - Ahmedabad, Mangaluru, and Lucknow - to the same company.

Eight months after the Cabinet approval, Adani Enterprises signed the concessionaire agreement with the AAI on February 14 this year for operation, management, and development of airports at Ahmedabad, Mangaluru and Lucknow.

In June this year, the AAI gave three more months to the Ahmedabad-based company to take over the management of these three airports due to the COVID-19 situation. This means the deadline for taking over has been pushed from August 12 to November 12.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had on Tuesday said that the Ministry of Civil Aviation would place a proposal for "further" privatization of airports before the Union Cabinet on Wednesday.

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