Realty companies see big money in city side of small airports

Several real-estate developers like Omaxe, L&T, Unitech and GMR are keenly bidding for city-side development of the four airports at Udaipur, Amritsar, Vizag and Ahmedabad. This is the first lot of airports which has been taken up by the civil aviation ministry for city-side development.

"While pre-qualification bids have been invited for Udaipur and Amritsar, the other two (airports) will be taken up early next year," said a civil aviation ministry official.

Omaxe, L&T and Unitech have already applied for the Rs 200-crore development projects at Udaipur and Amritsar. The work includes commercial operations and maintenance of the airport terminal building, besides development of 46,268 sq metres and 110,308 sq metres of land for city-side development and cargo handling facilities at Udaipur and Amritsar, respectively.

Car-parking facilities of 13,000-14,000 square metres are also planned near each airport. The pre-qualification process for these airports started in October. The short-list, already delayed, is expected to be out later this month or early next month. The bids will be invited on the basis of the list.

"Once the first process is over, the qualified bidders will submit tenders, which will be processed early next year. The construction work should begin by February," said an Omaxe executive.

Omaxe has tied up with several airport operators for its foray. Unitech also confirmed the development. Omaxe is also doing construction for Chennai and Kolkata airports, both of which are being developed by the Airports Authority of India (AAI).

L&T, which has done construction work for all privatised metro airports, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad, has bid for Udaipur and is eyeing Amritsar, Vizag and Ahmedabad as well.

"We have already bid for Udaipur and Amritsar and are also looking at Ahmedabad and Amritsar. Apart from that, we will obviously be open to any other potential project that comes our way," said a source in L&T.

According to the AAI projections, the number of flights from Amritsar is slated to almost double in the next two years and the cargo traffic is likely to grow 55 per cent. The projected traffic growth at Udaipur, however, is a mere 10 per cent with no clear trends for cargo.