NEW DELHI: Some of the top infrastructure developers are in the race for modernising Udaipur and Amritsar airports.
These two are the first among 35 non-metro airports to be modernized under the public-private partnership model where the successful bidder would be responsible for commercial operation and maintenance of the terminal building, development and operation of cargo related facilities and city side development.
Consortia led by Reliance Energy, Fraport AG, Tata-Changi, Lanco and L&T have been short listed as pre-qualified bidders for the Amritsar leg of modernisation.
For Udaipur, the consortia shortlisted are led by Reliance Energy, Tata-Changi, L&T, Maytas Infra and GMR.
According to an official statement, the selected bidder would be entitled to levy and charge a “pre-determined user fee from users of the terminal. All other charges may be determined by the selected bidder.”
But the user development fee (UDF, a fee passengers would have to pay for using improved airport infrastructure) in the case of Udaipur and Amritsar is unlikely to create as much of a stink as in the case of the two recently modernized airports (Bangalore and Hyderabad).
This is because the government is in the midst of bringing a policy on cross subsidisation of aeronautical revenues (levies airlines and consumers pay to use airport facilities) with non-aeronautical revenues (generated by the developer through commercial development of part of airport land).
This policy wants 30% of aeronautical revenue to be cross-subsidised with non-aeronautical revenue.
The statement said that bid documents for request for proposal for both these airports would be issued by the middle of next month.
