16 companies line-up to develop Ahmedabad Airport

Unperturbed by the general slowdown in the aviation sector, as many as 16 private developers have lined up showing interest in the development of the Ahmedabad Airport, reports CNBC-TV18’s Ronojoy Banerjee. These developers see the Ahmedabad Airport emerging as a future hub to de-congest the Mumbai airport.

The 16 developers include, GVK, GMR, Tatas, Reliance Infra, Essel Infra and Fraport which had developed the Delhi Airport along with GMR. Sources say even Larsen & Toubro has shown interest for development of other airports. Last week representatives of these companies attended a pre-qualification meet called by AAI and had shown interest for development of this Airport.
However, the government has decided now to extend the deadline for announcement of the qualified candidates by more than a month for the six airports of Lucknow, Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati and Ahmedabad. For instance, in case of Chennai the date has now been extended to December 2 from November 4.
In case of Kolkata Airport, the dateline has been extended to January 20 from November 25; November 11 to December 26 for Jaipur, November 5 to January 6 for Ahmedabad and November 20 to January 20 for Guwahati.
The only exception is the airport of Lucknow where the dates for announcing the qualified candidates have been brought forward to November 27 from December 15.
The extension is on account of private developers seeking clarity on the revenue sharing model with AAI and on whether it is imperative for retaining the current workforce at these airports once they are privatised. Also read: Govt move to privatise 6 airports: AAI employees strike
The issue has cropped over the relentless opposition from thousands of existing employees of AAI against the government’s privatisation drive. The protesting employees argue that AAI has already spent over Rs 4,000 crore for the modernization of the big revenue generating airports of Chennai and Kolkata airports alone over the last few years.
Despite the delay government officials rule any roll back of the decision. They reason that while the private developers will own the management of these airports for a fixed period of 30 years, AAI will still have the power to block resolutions in the form of golden shares.
A question mark, however, looms on whether the government will be able to keep up its commitment to privatise these airports before the commencement of the general elections next year especially at the backdrop of the overall interest this has generated.