Revenue Earned Through Privatisation Of Airports: Government Responds (image: unsplash/Vivek Doshi)

New Delhi: In a question raised in the Lok Sabha over the privatisation of airports, the union government explained about the revenue earned through leasing out eight airports in the country so far. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has leased out eight airports namely Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram under Public Private Partnership (PPP) for operation, management and development on long term lease basis.

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“Since handing over the airports, AAI has received approximately Rs. 37797 crore as revenue share from the concessionaire of Delhi & Mumbai Airports till FY 2023-24.Further, the Private Partners of remaining six airports have paid approximately Rs. 2310 crore to AAI in the form of Per Passenger Fee (PPF) till October, 2024. AAI has also received an amount of approximately Rs. 5260 crore from the Private Partners of these six airports in the form of upfront fee towards the capital expenditure incurred by AAI at these airports,” Minister of Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol said.

Continuing further, Minister stressed that 25 Airports namely, Bhubaneswar, Varanasi, Amritsar, Trichy, Indore, Raipur, Calicut, Coimbatore, Nagpur, Patna, Madurai, Surat, Ranchi, Jodhpur, Chennai, Vijayawada, Vadodara, Bhopal, Tirupati, Hubli, Imphal, Agartala, Udaipur, Dehradun and Rajahmundry have been earmarked for leasing over the years 2022 to 2025, under National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP).

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Further, in reply to a question concerning the details of ongoing projects of airports in the state of Tamil Nadu, Minister said that under the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS)-UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik), Rs. 55.19 crore for Vellore, Rs. 15.38 crore for Neyveli and Rs. 27.31 crore for Salem has been allocated. The development works in the all these airports have been completed and RCS flights have also began operations from Salem, Minister added.

Last year, the government had put its airport privatisation drive on a slow phase due to assembly elections in several states and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.