The move will help create world class airports and ensure efficient and quality services to the passengers

The government has approved the leasing out of three airports, namely Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram of Airports Authority of India (AAI) through Public Private Partnership for development, operation and maintenance.

The Union Cabinet today cleared the decision to lease out the airports for a period of 50 years to Adani Enterprises Ltd. which had emerged successful in the Global Competitive Bidding carried out earlier.

Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri welcomed the decision on Twitter, saying, “PPP at these airports will not only help in delivery of efficient and quality services to the air passengers but will also help @AAI_Official in enhancing its revenues & focusing on developing more airports at Tier-II & Tier III places”.



This will bring efficiency in service delivery, expertise, enterprise and professionalism apart from harnessing the needed investments in the public sector, stated an official press release after the proposal was cleared.

The Delhi and Mumbai airports have been on Public Private Partnership for operation, management and development, after it was approved by the government about 10 years ago. This has helped create world class airports and helped in 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.

According to the press release, the 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. Furthermore, the PPP airports, in India, are consistently ranked among the top 5 in their respective categories by the Airports Council International (ACI) in terms of Airport Service Quality (ASQ).

The government decided to lease out more airports for operation, management and development under PPP through Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC). An Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) was implemented to decide on any issue falling beyond the scope of PPPAC.