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No favour to Adani in running of 6 airports: Centre

KT NEWS SERVICE. Dated: 1/22/2021 12:46:32 PM

NEW DELHI, Jan 21: The Civil Aviation Ministry on Thursday denied a media report on the red flags allegedly raised by the finance ministry and Niti Aayog before Adani Enterprises Ltd.'s clean sweep of six airports of Jaipur, Guwahati, Tiruvananthapuram, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangalore.
In a lengthy press note, it clarified that Adanis bagged the bid by quoting the higher in terms of per passenger fee in the e-tendering conducted in a competitive and transparent manner. out of 32 bids received from 10 different entities. Moreover, it said the tender process of each airport was held on individual basis and the bidder whose quote was the highest in each case was considered.
The ministry also clarified that acquisition of stake in the Mumbai airport by Adanis is independent of the company seeking extension from the Airport Authority of India (AAI) for the take over of the three airports of Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangalore.
On extension granted beyond stipulated six months in case of the three other airports from the signing of the concessional agreement, the ministry said it arose due to the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting into difficulty in physical takeover of the airports on account of logistics. Also, the concession agreements for Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram airports were not signed in September as claimed in the report, but only on January 19, 2021.
It said the sale of stakes of private entities in the Mumbai airport was guided by the contractual provisions of the shareholders agreement in which they are free to sell their stakes after following the due process. It said a similar transaction had taken place in case of the Bangalore airport where the shares of L&T and Zurich were acquired by GVK Airports Holding, which in turn sold them to Fairfax.