Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow and 3 other airports to be managed under PPP after cabinet gives its nod

The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved a proposal to manage Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow and three other airports under public private partnership (PPP). The three other aerodromes are those at Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangaluru.

The operation, management and development of all these aerodromes, owned by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), would be done under PPP, an official tweet said. This would be done through Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC). Any issue that is beyond the scope of PPPAC would be dealt with by an empowered group of secretaries, the tweet added. The group would be headed by NITI Aayog CEO. Secretaries of Civil Aviation Ministry, Department of Economic Affairs and Department of Expenditure would be part of the group.

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The Union Cabinet also approved the strategic sale of government stake in Dredging Corporation of India to a consortium of four ports.

The government currently holds 73.44% in Dredging Corporation of India Ltd (DCIL).

"CCEA has given in principle approval for strategic disinvestment of 100 per cent Government of India's share in DCIL to consortium of 4 ports, namely Vishakhapatnam Port Trust, Paradeep Port Trust, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust and Kandla Port Trust," an official tweet said.

The approval will further facilitate the linkage of dredging activities with the ports, keeping in view the role of the DCIL in expansion of dredging activity in the country as well as potential diversification of ports into third party dredging, the tweet said after the meeting of the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The co-sharing of facilities between the company as well as ports shall lead to savings for ports. This would further provide opportunities for larger investment in DCIL as integration with ports shall help in effective vertical linkage in the value chain," the tweet added.

The government has budgeted to raise Rs 80,000 crore from PSU disinvestment in the year. So far this fiscal, the government has mopped up over Rs 15,000 crore from PSU stake sale.