LGBI Airport
File photo of LGBI Airport in Guwahati. I

The Adani Group has emerged as the highest bidder for Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International (LGBI) Airport in Guwahati on Tuesday.

It will now operate the Guwahati airport for 50 years.

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With this remarkable achievement, it has now won bids to operate all six airports for which it placed bids, reports TOI.

The other five airports apart from Guwahati for which it has won bids include Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Lucknow, Mangaluru and Jaipur.

A senior official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said that Adani’s per passenger, per month revenue share bid of Rs 160 is the highest for Guwahati.

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The official also said that the tendering process has been completed and the transfer of airports and the actual award of work will happen only after Cabinet clearance.

Adani Enterprises Ltd bid aggressively to claim the top slot for the five airports, quoting a per-passenger (domestic) fee of Rs 177 for the Ahmedabad airport, where the Group is based, Rs 174 for Jaipur, Rs 171 for Lucknow, Rs 168 for Thiruvananthapuram and Rs 115 for Mangaluru.

Only Adani and GMR group had submitted bids for all the six airports.

Ahmedabad and Jaipur airports received seven bids each. Lucknow and Guwahati received six bids each. Mangaluru and Thiruvananthapuram received three bids each.

A total of 32 technical bids were received from 10 companies to operate six airports that are currently under AAI’s management. A total of 10 bidders, including Italy’s Autostrade, Mauritius-based I Investments and Kerala state government had placed the bids.

The move to manage the six airports on PPP basis, according to AAI, is part of an initiative to provide world-class infrastructure and services to stakeholders.

Among private players, the airport sector in the country is dominated by GMR group and GVK who operate Delhi and Mumbai airports respectively. GMR also runs the Hyderbad airport and is also developing a greenfield facility in Mopa (Goa). GVK owns the Navi Mumbai airport which is likely to come up by 2021.