Ahmedabad airport privatisation may face further delay
Further delays are being faced by Ahmedabad airport for its privatisation. Recently Madras High Court vacated a stay on the privatisation process, now the Airport Authority of India (AAI) is in anticipation of an approval on a concessional agreement from the Ministry of Civil Aviation. After such an approval will the authority be able to call for bids as per AAI officials.
In January the Airport Authority of India (AAI) employees’ union had wanted a stay on the privatisation process from the Madras HC which was later vacated.
A top AAI official alleged, “The stay was vacated by the Madras High Court, allowing us to go ahead with the privatisation process. However, while the RFQs are still coming in, we have prepared and sent a concessional agreement to the Ministry of Civil Aviation for approval. This is likely to take some time. We don’t think the bidding process would begin anytime soon before the elections.”
Six airports including the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (SVP) International Airport in Ahmedabad along with five other airports including Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Jaipur and Guwahati have been forwarded by the Ministry of Civil Aviation for privatisation through a public private partnership (PPP) mode and had asked for request for qualification (RFQs) from concerned private parties in mid January 2014.
Many major players such as Adani, GMR, GVK, Essel Infra Projects, IRB, Essar and Sadbhav Engineering, among others have submitted RFQs and visited the airports for the privatisation bids.Once the approval is done on RFQs and the concessional agreement, the following step will be request for interest (RFIs) and request for proposals (RFPs) where the bidding for the airports’ privatisation will be done by the qualified players.
SVP International Airport in Ahmedabad
At SVP International Airport in Ahmedabad, as per AAI officials over 16 interested players including Adani, GMR and GVK representatives have visited the airport as part of the RFQs placed by them. Members of the AAI employee union mentioned that though on one hand the union is protesting against privatisation of the airport, if the privatisation takes place despite protests it is also challenging wage norms as per the government’s pay commission.
A senior AAI official at the SVP airport told that, since it is one of the few profit making as well as the second largest airport after Mumbai in the western region, we don’t understand why the central government is privatising Ahmedabad airport. However, since the privatisation is expected, we are trying to make our demands clear. The employees are also demanding retention policies apart from compensation packages of Pay Commission standards.
Almost 100 domestic and international flights running daily from the SVP International Airport in Ahmedabad it earns a Rs 100 crore profit annually.
Source: Business Standard
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