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The Madras High Court has given an interim stay on Government's decision to privatise the Chennai Airport. The Court has given an interim stay, restraining the Government of India, Airport Authority of India and others from proceeding on the Request for Qualification (RFQ) invited from private parties.
Justice R Subbiah granted the interim injunction on a petition filed by Airports Authority Employees' Union, and adjourned the matter to February 5.
While questioning the legality of the decision to privatise the Chennai airport, both domestic and international terminals, the Union has said it would adversely affect the employees, besides going beyond the jurisdiction of the authority.
The Order under challenge was issued in September 2013, and it proposed to privatise Chennai airport's operations and management through private-public participation (PPP). AAI originally planned to publish the result of request for qualification (RFQ), which would signal commencement of the bidding process, by December-end, but rescheduled it several times.
In mid-2013, the AAI had issued an order under the subject ‘infrastructure development’ purportedly to implement the report of the Planning Commission for development, operation and maintenance of identified airports through public, private participation (PPP) and created the Key Infrastructure Development Cell”
The Centre’s agenda to privatise Chennai Airport through PPP for operations, management and transfer by publication of the RFQ notice on September 3 last year giving a schedule for the bidding process.
The decision as visualised in the RFQ was beyond the scope of the provisions of the AAI Act, according to the Petition, copy of which is available with Business Standard.
“...the Court may be pleased to issue an order of ad-interim injunction, restraining the respondents (Government, AAI and others) from proceeding any further with regard to the RFQ invited from private parties for the management of Chennai Airport dated September 3, 2013 together with all addendum pending the disposal of the above Write Petition,” according to the Union's petition.
While accepting the petition, the Court gave an interim stay for the tender process and posted the matter for February 5.
Some of the companies which have shown interest in the project include GVK, IL & FS Transportation Networks Limited, Essar Projects (India) Ltd, Essel Infraprojects Limited, CIAL, Fraport Saudi Arabia – KAIA, Abdullah Kirimli (Celebi Havacilik Holdings A S), GMR Airports Limited and Sahara Group.
On the backdrop of continuous protest from the employees, the Government of India has plans to privatise six airports in the country, recently floated an RFQ for managing the Chennai and Lucknow airports.
In Chennai, as reported earlier, around 400 employees from the Airport Authority Employees Union (AAEU) conducted demonstration at the Airport, on October 8, restricting the company representatives from entering into the Airport.
The employees union says that the employees would lose job security if the facility is privatised, even as the government has assured that no jobs will be lost due to the privatisation. The Union has also conducted relay hunger strike in connection with the Airport Privatisation, later.
The employees union says that the authority has recently completed two new terminals with a total investment of over Rs 2000 crore and privatising at this point of time would increase the user development fee and airport development fee for the customers.
Earlier, the AAI has launched a new domestic and international terminals with an investment of around Rs 2015 crore. The authority is expecting the period for pay back to be nearly 10 years.
The new domestic terminal has a capacity of 10 million, while for international it is 4 million. The combined area of the new terminals is around 1,33,462 sq mts. The handling capacity in domestic terminal has been expected to go up to 16 million and the international terminal to 7 million per annum, with the new terminals.
