The Union Cabinet has approved the proposal for leasing out three airports -- Trivandrum, Jaipur and Guwahati -- to be operated under public-private partnership (PPP), Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar, said on Wednesday.
The Adani Enterprises Ltd had in 2019 won the bid to operate six airports -- Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Trivandrum, and Guwahati. The Centre had in February signed the concessionaire agreement with Adani for starting PPP operations of Mangaluru, Ahmedabad and Lucknow airports. With Wednesday's cabinet decision, Trivandrum, Jaipur and Guwahati airports too can now be operated by Adani who has won the bid.
The six airports which Adani group won the bid to manage and operate, are owned by the Airports Authority of India (AAI). It was during a press conference on Wednesday, that Prakash Javadekar announced that the cabinet has given approval for the remaining three airports PPP management.
The Kerala government has been opposing Adani group's involvement from the beginning. The state government had even moved the Supreme Court challenging the Airport Authority of India (AAI) which granted the bid, stating that the company had no previous experience in handling airports. This was in violation of the Airports Authority of India Act, 1994, the state government had argued.
The Kerala government has said that it had also quoted the same commercial amount for which Adani had won the bid. Besides this and the fact that the government has experience over the management and running of airports, the bid was given to Adani. The Kerala government called this as “arbitrary, motivated by mala fides, and devoid of public interest”, in Supreme Court.
(With inputs from PTI)