Cabinet approves leasing out six airports through PPP

Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved leasing out six airports of Airports Authority of India (AAI) for operation, management and development under Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the first phase. This will be done through Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC).
Union Cabinet also approved constitution of Empowered Group of Secretaries headed by CEO, NITI Aayog with Secretaries of Ministry of Civil Aviation, Department of Economic Affairs and Department of Expenditure to decide on any issue falling beyond scope of PPPAC.

Benefits

PPP in infrastructure projects brings efficiency in service delivery, enterprise, expertise and professionalism apart from harnessing needed investments in public sector. The PPP in airport infrastructure projects has brought world class infrastructure at airports, delivery of efficient and timely services to airport passengers, augmenting revenue stream to AAI without making any investment, etc. of these, for development of Greenfield Airports.
Presently, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Cochin airports are being managed under PPP model.PPP airports in India have been ranked among top 5 in their respective categories by Airports Council International (ACI) in terms of Airport Service Quality (ASQ). These PPP experiments have helped to create world class airports and also helped AAI in enhancing its revenues and focusing on developing airports and air navigation infrastructure in rest of the country.

Month: Current Affairs - November, 2018