Airports Authority Of India Can Monetise 2,000-3,000 Acres Of Its Land, Minister Says

Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Thursday said the national airports operator, Airports Authority of India (AAI) could monetise around 2,000-3,000 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 2017-18 Union Budget that "the AAI Act will be amended to allow monetisation of land assets owned by AAI”.

He also said the move to monetise the land AAI's assets would benefit the fliers as well. The national airports operator owns around 55,000 hectares of land in urban areas across the country.

Significantly, the AAI chairman had last year said that the authority would focus on monetisation of its huge 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 percent of its annual topline.

Asserting that the government's ambitious 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.

Terming the budget as "excellent", Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha said monetisation of airports and development of aerodromes in Tier-2 cities under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode would help enhancing capacity and generate additional resources for new projects.

Civil Aviation Secretary RN Choubey said he was "happy" with the budget. "We got what we wanted from the budget," he said.

"We wanted AAI Act to be amended so that land could be monetised," he said.

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