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Airports Authority to sell smaller airports

The ministry of civil aviation has decided to sell 40 airports belonging to Airport Authority of India to state governments at a nominal price of Re 1 each.

The Maharashtra government has in principle agreed to take over the Solapur and Kolhapur airports in south Maharashtra for its future maintenance, operations and expansion, according to civil aviation, said M K Kaw, secretary, ministry of civil aviation.

Kaw was addressing a seminar on Air Cargo and Open Skies Policy in Bombay on Saturday evening. Unfolding the various measures being adopted by the civil aviation ministry to modernise the 120 airports administered by AAI, he said the government has also decided to allow private and foreign equity participation ranging from 74 per cent to 100 per cent in a large number of the country's airport, as the government does not have adequate resources to modernise and expand them. At the end of it all, AAI wants to retain only about 30 airports under its own wings.

An Airports Restructuring Commission set up by the government has already begun to identity the airports to be privatised and also examining the measures needed for raising their standards to international levels.

AAI will also prepare a shelf of projects in respect of greenfield airports and make available pre-feasibility reports to private investors for building infrastructure. The government will provide incentives for all these projects, Kaw declared.

Air traffic control services will, however, will continue to be regulated in accordance with the terms and conditions mutually agreed upon. Further, the government proposes to convert the Office of Director-General of Civil Aviation into a Civil Aviation Authority with full powers of regulations over all aspects of the aviation industry, he said.

Referring to the Solapur and Kolhapur airports, he said the Union ministry of civil aviation and the Maharastra government has held several rounds of talks in this regard and the exact details of the take over procedure from Airport Authority of India are being worked out.

While the expansion of major airports could be taken care of by the ministry, the smaller airports could be taken up for further development by the state governments. The Karnataka government has taken some effective measures in this regard, he informed.

The ministry has also decided to upgrade and expand 10 big airports of the country including New Delhi and Bombay to bring up the latter two to international standards.

For the restructuring plan, the ministry has invited designs and upgradation projects from 10 big consultants and the best among it will be selected. ''In fact, companies from Germany and the United Kingdom have been considered to restructure the New Delhi and Bombay airports respectively,'' he said.

UNI