Civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju has said the Airports Authority of India (AAI) could monetise around 2000-3000 acres of its land and utilise the funds raised in airport infrastructure development.
Under the current norms, airport land could be used only for limited purposes.
Raju’s comments came a day after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced in the Union Budget that the AAI Act will be amended to allow monetisation of land assets owned by AAI.
“AAI can easily monetise 2000-3000 acres of land. The amount raised from this should contribute to infrastructure development,” Raju said and added that the move to monetise the land assets of the AAI would benefit the fliers as well.
AAI owns around 55,000 hectares of land in urban areas across the country.
The AAI chairman too had last year said the authority would focus on monetisation of its chunk of land on the city side across airports in the country as part of AAI’s larger efforts to enhance non-aeronautical revenues.
AAI’s non-aeronautical revenue currently account for around 19 per cent of its annual topline.
Asserting that the government’ Regional Connectivity Scheme, UDAAN, was going in the right direction, Raju said the first flight under the scheme was likely to take off in March.
Applauding the budget, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha said that monetisation of airports and development of aerodromes in Tier II cities under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode would help enhancing capacity and generate additional resources for new projects.
“It is a very important policy step. With monetisation and PPP mode in Tier II cities, we will massively expand capacities and generate new resources to build new Tier III airports,” Sinha said.
(PTI)
