The NDA government has cancelled the requests for qualification (RFQs) for privatisation of six airports mooted by the erstwhile UPA regime, Rajya Sabha was informed today.
"The RFQs, which were earlier issued for public-private partnership (PPP) at six airports, have been cancelled," Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma said in a written reply.
The UPA-II government had early last year launched the PPP process for modernising six airports at Kolkata, Chennai, Jaipur, Guwahati, Ahmedabad and Lucknow.
However, Sharma said the government "intends to take up" development and modernisation of the airports at Ahmedabad and Jaipur through the PPP mode, though the RFQs for them have "not been issued".
In-principle approvals have also been granted for setting up 15 greenfield airports in the country, he said.
To a question that some airports have been recently modernised but no flights operate there, Sharma said there were ten such airports across the country.
These were at Akola, Bhatinda, Bikaner, Coochbehar, Jaisalmer, Jalgaon, Kadapa, Ludhiana, Pathankot and Puducherry which have been incurring huge losses in the last three years, the Minister said.
In reply to a question on the (5/20) norm of five years of domestic flying and a 20-aircraft fleet to allow Indian carriers fly abroad, Sharma said, "If it (norm) is abolished, new airlines can start international operations without waiting for five years and without having the minimum 20 aircraft."
He replied in the negative when asked whether he had received any such demand from the new airlines.
