The government may exit 11 airports by the end of the financial year 2025-26 as a part of a strategic decision to exit from the assets and reduce budget deficits. It has emerged that the government intends to combine the loss-making airports with the profitable ones in order to attract investors. This is the third round of airport privatization and the targeted airports have handled 10 per cent of domestic and four per cent of international traffic in the past 9 months.
Among the airports expected to be privatized, Varanasi will be paired with Kushinagar and Gaya. On the contrary, Gaya does not see near similar tourism traffic and Kushinagar has not had any passenger movement since June. Furthermore, Bhubaneswar and Amritsar will be combined with Hubli and Kangra, while Raipur and Tiruchirapalli will be grouped with Aurangabad and Tirupati.
This privatization initiative is in conformity with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has vowed to raise ₹47,000 lakh crore through asset sales in a bid to bring down the fiscal deficit to 4.4 per cent of GDP. It is expected that billionaire Gautam Adani’s Adani Airport Holdings Ltd, India’s biggest airport operator, will be a leading contender. It has also acquired GVK’s stake and got six airports in the previous divestment phase. Another big name that might be there is GMR Airports Ltd, which runs Delhi’s international airport.
The AAI will prepare the privatization plan and submit it to the government for approval within one month. The bidding process will be on the basis of the highest revenue sharing per passenger to ensure that there is a transparent mechanism of sharing of earnings.
