INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
ANI |
Updated: Jan 17, 2020 08:44 IST
New Delhi [India], Jan 17 (ANI): The newly appointed chairman of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) Arvind Singh on Thursday
revealed to have a major infrastructure upgradation plan for next five years involving a whopping investment of Rs 25,000 crore."We need a
huge amount of investment -- several billions of dollars - to ensure holistic infrastructure upgradation in the aviation sector across the
We will invest about Rs 25,000 crore to augment facilities and infrastructure at the airports during the next five years," said Singh during
an exclusive interview to ANI here.Talking about the growth in the number of flyers over the years, Singh said: "Currently we are handling
It is expected that an additional 550 million passengers will be augmented, which takes the total traffic to around 900 million passengers
We have to go for capacity building accordingly."Commenting on the UDAN scheme, he said: "We are working on this scheme, which aims at
building airports in unconnected regions of the country
The plan is to double the number of airports in the country
The major challenge under the UDAN scheme is that many routes have been awarded, but the bidders have not come to operationalise the routes
There is also a challenge to find newer routes."UDAN or 'Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik' is a regional connectivity scheme launched by the Central
government that aims to make unserved or underserved airports in small cities operational with regular flights, and offer subsidised
airfares to encourage more people to fly.On being asked about the privatisation of airports and the role of AAI, Singh said: "Privatisation
The first privatisation bid was made when Mumbai and Delhi airports were privatised in 2005-06.""The Greenfield airports were built by
private players at Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and so on
Durgapur airport in West Bengal was built by a private player
Last year, the AAI recommended the Centre to privatise six more airports -- Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy," he
said."The process of privatisation helps reduce the cost of AAI
We are able to get revenues from the airports without deploying manpower
We are able to direct the funds towards unserved areas," Singh added.Appreciating the growth in air traffic at Tier-II and Tier-III cities,
Singh said: "The response we are getting from the state governments is tremendous
The growth rate of air traffic is double or triple as compared to the national pace of growth." (ANI)
