Seven companies submit bids for Ahmedabad airport privatization

AHMEDABAD: Seven bidders have submitted their bids for the proposed privatization of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International (SVPI) Airport top officials of Airports Authority of India (AAI) have confirmed. The officials said that the bids have been opened and will now be put through another round of scrutiny to verify their validity.

“The technical bids for the privatization of SVPI airport have been received.These will now be put under scrutiny and be evaluated to identify whether the bids are financially valid,” said Guruprasad Mohapatra, chairman, AAI.
Top sources confirmed that the financial bids found valid will be opened on February 25 and be sent for cabinet approvals. After this, the bidder will be finalized.
The bidders who have shown interest in taking up the operation, management and development of SVPI airport include Adani Enterprises Limited, Sydney, Australia-based AMP Capital Investors (UK) Limited, Autostrade, GMR Airports Limited, I Investments Ltd, PNC Infrastructure Ltd and Sanna Enterprises.
The cabinet cleared the proposal for privatization of SVPI Airport in Ahmedabad along with five others in Lucknow, Jaipur, Mangalore, Guwahati and Trivandrum, under the public-private partnership (PPP) model in November 2018. Soon after, the tenders, inviting bids for operation, maintenance and development of these airports were issued on December 14 and the deadline for submitting the final bids was February 14.
The proposed privatization of these six airports will be done through a public-private partnership model. This will be implemented on the lines of airports in Mumbai and Delhi, which have already been privatized.
“This means, the bidder who is awarded the contract will be owning, operating, maintaining and developing the airport, while the Air Traffic Control (ATC) along with Communication, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) system will be managed by AAI,” said a source.
The bid for privatization of the SVPI airport has attracted protest from the Airports Authority Employees Union (AAEU), in December 2018. AAEU members had alleged that the government should not privatize a profit-making airport.