Airports may get a leg-up, decision today

Airports in India would soon have leisure facilities such as golf courses, hotels, sports complex and convention centres like those in top metros around the world to improve earning of the Airports Authority of India (AAI).

Updated on: Mar 17, 2011, 24:07:58 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Airports in India would soon have leisure facilities such as golf courses, hotels, sports complex and convention centres like those in top metros around the world to improve earning of the Airports Authority of India (AAI).

Losses of the AAI have been increasing in the recent past with a loss of over Rs 1,500 crore in the financial year 2009-10.

AAI's expenditure is expected to be Rs 13,000 crore in the 11th plan ending in 2011-12 comapred to Rs 3,500 crore in the 10th five year plan.

In a bid to improve AAI's revenue resources, the Empowered Group of Ministers headed by finance minister Pranab Mukerjee on Thursday is expected to consider a proposal to allow commercial activity of non-aeronautical nature on airport land.

"The finance minister has already given his in-principle approval to the proposal as all hurdles have been cleared. The EGoM is expected to clear the proposal tomorrow," a senior government functionary said.

The biggest hurdle was the legal opinion.

According to officials, the law ministry has given the go ahead saying the AAI must act on business and commercial interests.

Internationally, up to 60% of the airport land can be used for commercial purposes. But, in India only 30% of that land is being used for commercial purposes.

The AAI is at present developing modern airports at Kolkata and Chennai and 31 non-metro cities.

The EGoM decision is likely to help the authority in improving its revenue stream from these airports as plans in most airports for additional commercial use of land are in place.

The civil aviation ministry's proposal says the guidelines to make the decision operational will be issued within six months in consultation with the finance ministry and the Planning Commission.

The land could be used for setting up golf courses, business parks, high-tech parks, commercial offices, sports complex and convention centers.

However, the details of which all activities to be allowed will be spelt out in the guidelines.

Whether the project will be in public-private partnership mode or totally private or totally AAI owned will be worked out before the guidelines are issued, officials said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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