The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) is working out the public-private-partnership (PPP) modalities for the 25-odd airports that have been identified under the National Monetisation Pipeline, a senior ministry official said.

According to the official, the PPP modalities include clubbing two airports – one large and one small – of the same state or region so as to make the offer more attractive for bidding; or going for bids for a single airport.

“We are yet to finalise the modalities. And discussions in this regard are on,” the official said.

Airports identified include Nagpur, Varanasi, Dehradun, Trichy, Indore, Chennai, Calicut, Coimbatore, Bhubaneshwar, Patna, Madurai, Tirupati, Ranchi, Jodhpur, Raipur, Rajahmundry, Vadodara, Amritsar, Surat, Hubli, Imphal, Agartala, Udaipur, Bhopal, and Vijayawada.

Increase in air passenger traffic

Meanwhile, GK Reddy, Union Minister for Culture, Tourism and Development of North Eastern Region, on Monday, said, air passenger traffic is expected to further increase this year due to G-20 meetings and other factors, that include lower incidents of Covid infections.

Plans are also afoot to increase the number of operational flight routes.

“India is the third largest aviation market globally and the sector was amongst the worst hit during Covid. It is now staging a recovery and in 2023, with G-20 meetings and lower incidents of Covid, air traffic is expected to improve further,” he said during a media address.

According to the tourism minister, the country’s flagship regional connectivity scheme (UDAN) has seen disbursal of ₹2,360 crore as viability gap funding (VGF).

On February 12, the domestic air passenger traffic stood at 437,800 on 2,935 flights.

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