India’s Union Cabinet has given its approval to lease three airports, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram, under the public-private partnership (PPP) model.
The three airports are owned by the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
The approval was given to Adani Enterprises to operate, manage and develop the three airports for a 50-year period.
Adani was selected through a global competitive bidding process carried out by the AAI.
The projects are expected to increase the efficiency of service delivery, expertise, enterprise and professionalism.
AAI manages more than 100 airports in the country.
Around ten years ago, the Indian Government leased out AAI’s Delhi and Mumbai airports on PPP for operation, management and development.
In a statement, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said: “While these PPP experiments have helped create world-class airports and helped in the delivery of efficient and quality services to the airport passengers, it has also helped AAI in enhancing its revenues and focusing on developing airports and Air Navigation infrastructure in the rest of the country.
“Revenue received by AAI from PPP partners enabled AAI to create infrastructure facilities in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and also to upgrade their airports to international standards.”
Earlier this week, India planned to privatise additional airports to increase its efforts to develop infrastructure.
In May, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that 12 airports in the country will be auctioned under the PPP model.
India resumed domestic passenger flights on 25 May after all flights were suspended in March due to the Covid-19 lockdown.
