After Delhi and Mumbai, 30 non-metro airports now in queue for facelift

With the restructuring of Delhi and Mumbai airports on track, the Civil Aviation Ministry has decided to move swiftly on modernising 30 non-...

With the restructuring of Delhi and Mumbai airports on track, the Civil Aviation Ministry has decided to move swiftly on modernising 30 non-metro airports through private participation. It will seek the Committee on Infrastructure’s nod for its proposal next week.

A green signal from the committee, the Ministry feels, would be as good as a Cabinet approval since it is headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and includes Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia—the panel meets on September 27.

The plan to modernise these airports has been in the works for a while and, according to estimates, nearly Rs 4500 crores would be needed for the project to be implemented in a phased manner.

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The focus is on developing the city side, which essentially means better facilities in terminal buildings, parking areas and an overall emphasis on increasing non-aeronautical revenue.

Already, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has obtained reports on several of these airports from global technical consultants—a set of technical and financial advisors had been appointed for each group of five airports.

According to the earlier plan, these consultants may hold equity in the subsequent modernisation efforts, too, but this has been scrapped. However, the idea is to form a joint venture where AAI will hold not less than 26 per cent and a maximum of 49 per cent to develop the city side or non-operational aspects of these airports.

Given that these decisions have been taken keeping the Planning Commission in the picture, official sources said the stamp of approval from the Infrastructure Committee may not be a problem. The Ministry will also list out the options available to raise money for this project.

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One of the resources is the AAI reserve itself, which exceeds Rs 1,000 crore. The rest can be raised through private participation and by way of floating infrastructure bonds.

These 30 airports have been chosen on the grounds that they are either state capitals or places with immense tourist and business potential. Their traffic growth and forecast were also taken into account.

It’s learnt that at least 15 more airports are under consideration and may be added to the list as the project is implemented in phases. Already, plans for Ahmedabad and Thiruvananthapuram have been sent for approval of the Public Investment Board.

The modernisation aims to provide an overall facelift, better commercial exploitation of the airport area, world class management practices and improving general facilities.

The list of 30

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Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Goa, Guwahati, Lucknow, Madurai, Jaipur, Mangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Udaipur, Agatti, Aurangabad, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Coimbatore, Indore, Khajurao, Patna, Port Blair, Nagpur, Rajkot, Trichy, Vadodara, Varanasi, Vishakhapatnam, Ranchi, Dehradun, Raipur, Agartala and Imphal.