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Adani Group hits sixer with Guwahati airport win

According to information available with Airport Authority of India, five companies participated in the bid for Guwahati airport

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Gautam Adani
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After taking off of a positive note by winning bids for five domestic airports a day before, the port-to-power behemoth, Adani Group, continued to fly high as it won the bid to develop and operate Guwahati airport on Tuesday.

Adani Enterprises Ltd, a subsidiary of the group, has also won the bid for operation, management and development of airports at Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangaluru on Monday.

According to information available with Airport Authority of India (AAI), five companies participated in the bid for Guwahati airport. Adani Enterprises offered Rs 160 per passenger as against Rs 155 offered by NIIF & Zurich Airport International. Others such as AMP Capital offered Rs 136, GMR Airports Limited Rs 59 and PNC Infratech Limited Rs 18, respectively.

The bidding for all the six domestic airports this time is based on per passenger basis instead of revenue sharing during the privatisation of Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad airports. Also, the concession period offered in the latest round of bids is 50 years, as against 30 years earlier. The six airports collectively carried over 20.6 million domestic and 5.1 million international passengers during the April-December period.

The Adani group, which boasts of business interests ranging from ports, real estate, power, and defence, have shown a keen interest in the airport vertical, especially at a time when the industry's financials have taken a beating amid stiff competition and volatile fuel prices.

Recently, Adani Enterprises is believed to have shown interest in buying 23.5% stake of Bidvest and ACSA- two private equity partners of GVK Airport Ltd - in Mumbai airport. GVK, which had the first right of refusal, instead has agreed to acquire 13.5% stake of Bidvest in Mumbai airport in order to keep Adani Enterprises at bay. Apart from that, Adani group has already lined up Rs 1,500 crore investment plan to upgrade Mundra airport in Gujarat to a full-fledged commercial aerodrome.

The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) has estimated that up to $45 billion of investment will be required for airport expansion and construction in India by 2030 in order to keep pace with the projected growth in airport traffic.

Minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha last year said that the airport infrastructure sector is set to get around Rs 1 lakh crore in the next five years. Of the total, around Rs 95,178 crore of investment is expected to come from private investments in joint venture airports, creating of new terminals and development of greenfield airports.

AAI has an annual terminal capacity of 155 million passengers, which it intends to increase it to 300 million by 2026-27. The government has an outlay of over Rs 50,000 crore for developing greenfield airports.

Meanwhile, GMR Airports Limited (GAL), a subsidiary of GMR Infrastructure Ltd, has emerged as the highest bidder for the development, operations and management of greenfield international airport at Bhogapuram in Andhra Pradesh on PPP basis. The government officials said GMR Airport offered per passenger fee of Rs 303 against Rs 261 by DOIT Smart Infra and Rs 207 by GVK.

GAL is expected to make an investment of around Rs 2,300 crore in the first phase of development during which it expects the capacity to increase to six million passengers annually.

Andhra Pradesh Airports Development Corporation Ltd (APADCL) had initiated the RFP process for the new airport at Bhogapuram in November 2018. The concession period for the airport is 40

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