Govt likely to limit 2 bids per participant for airports

New Delhi, December 21

As the government has in principle decided to go for aggressive privatisation of airports, the Civil Aviation Ministry, it is learnt from sources, is working on regulatory norms for the process with an intention to fix the number of such facilities a participant can bid for.

As the ministry has been working on a fresh “disinvestment policy” for privatising airports of 2-tier cities, sources indicated that those, who express interest in buying the facilities, may be asked to limit their bids to a maximum of two in the next round for which the government has cleared a proposal to privatise six airports, including Varanasi and Amritsar.

Incidentally, in the first round of airport privatisation, where there was no limit, Adani Group could win bids for all six airports of Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangalore, Jaipur, Guwahati, and Trivandrum.

Later the Union Cabinet approved the bids for Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangalore, but the concession agreement for the three other airports — Jaipur, Guwahati and Trivandrum — is yet to be cleared for want of security clearance, which is to be given to Adani Group. Sources said the government will accord clearance for the other three too once the legal hurdles are cleared. — TNS