The Centre is in the process of finalising guidelines for bringing operations and management of some airports under the Public-Private-Partnership model, Civil Aviation Secretary V Somasundaram has said.

These operations are currently under control of Airports Authority of India.

Somasundaram also said that the five airports selected to be developed under “no-frills airports” category would be operational in the next two years.

“That model (under PPP) is mainly developed for the metro cities. The remaining airports are not in metro area. These are in medium cities. For these airports we may need a revised model because we will not have the kind of volume which Mumbai, Delhi or Bangalore have. So we are working on that,” Somasundaram said.

“May be within a month we will come out (with the guidelines). It is in advanced stage. We need to change the guidelines for PPP model. Within a month we expect these (guidelines) to be finalised. Then they will call for RFQ,” he told PTI during his recent visit to cyclone-hit Visakhapatnam.

Earlier, the Congress-led UPA government had in September last year decided to allow private parties to pick up 100 per cent equity stake in operation and management of the six airports — Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Lucknow — through the public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

The move was vehemently opposed by the airports’ unions, alleging that it would reduce the already shrinking revenue of the AAI due to the privatisation of country’s two busiest airports — Mumbai and Delhi.

A parliamentary panel had last year also opposed privatisation of government airports in the country. However, the present government has reportedly decided to keep airports at Chennai and Kolkata out of the PPP model as of now.

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