A Changi Airport team, which has been nominated by Singapore Government to carry out the operations and management of Ahmedabad and Jaipur airports, is likely to visit the two airports next month.
The visit would follow discussions with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) on the modalities of the Memorandum of Understanding signed between AAI and Singapore Co-operation Enterprise (SEC).
The AAI had signed an MoU with SEC, during Prime Minister Narender Modi's visit to that country, to co-operate in planning and development of Ahmedabad and Jaipur airports besides, other aspects including design, planning, traffic and commercial development, service quality and operations and management.
The operations of the airports, however, will remain with AAI.
"Singapore has nominated Changi Airport. The Changi team is expected to visit the two airports sometime in January. Before we could decide on what the terms and conditions can be for the two parties to work together," AAI Chairman R K Srivastava said on the sidelines of an event here today.
In 2014-15, Ahmedabad airport handled 5.05 million passengers, out of which 1.22 million were international travellers. During the same period, Jaipur airport saw 2.20 million passengers and out of them, 0.33 million were overseas travellers.
By 2023-24, Ahmedabad is expected to handle a total of 6.77 million passengers while Jaipur 3.75 million.
The move has, however, come under criticism from the opposition Congress and CPI(M), who have slammed the decision to handover the two airports to a foreign player.
The CPI(M) demanded that the details of the MoU be made public, while Congress termed it as "surprising and shocking."
However, Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey said that "It is very much possible that Changi decides that the procurement of some services at the two airports should be given out after going through a tender. Let the team come and then more details will emerge," he told reporters.
"Details are not on the table...Nothing is closed," he added.
