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| Aviation
News
April,
2006 |
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Private
developers take over New Delhi,
Mumbai airports for modernisation
New
Delhi: The private developers - GVK Industries Ltd. and GMR Consortium
- who had earlier signed agreements with the Centre to modernise the airports
in Mumbai and New Delhi, respectively, have formally taken over the functioning
of these airports, said Civil Aviation Secretary Ajay Prasad. Prasad said
that all the legal formalities for hand over are complete and added: "After
some initial hiccups, we are now on tracks to start the major work of
restructuring and modernisation of the two major gateways of Delhi and
Mumbai. The necessary agreements have been signed". He also said that
the first meeting of the new joint venture will be held in Delhi tomorrow
for the two airport modernisation projects. Delivering the key-note address
on "Modernizing Indian Airports - the Challenges Ahead", Prasad said,
besides New Delhi and Mumbai, the airports at tech-hubs - Hyderabad and
Bangalore - are on priority for development. "We are (now) getting to
a point where not only in the metros but 35 other cities in the country,
in the next three to four years, will have reasonable standards of terminals,
buildings and airports," he said. "Construction work at five cities -
Srinagar, Vizag, Mangalore, Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Udaipur - has already
started," added Prasad. Prasad called upon the civic authorities in the
national capital to take steps to develop a hassle free connectivity to
the airport as it gears up to handle 85 million passengers a year by the
year 2025. Congested waiting areas, lack of comfortable seats, slow baggage
handling and unreliable power supplies make travel a misery for India's
fast-expanding middle class which is increasingly taking to the air for
long-distance journeys. A group led by GVK Industries Ltd. and the Airports
Company of South Africa has been awarded the work at the country's busiest
airport in Mumbai, while for the national capital the contract has been
given to a consortium led by the GMR group in collaboration with German
airport operator Fraport. The government has handed over control and management
to joint ventures of the respective groups, and itself will retain a 26
percent stake in both.
-April
18, 2006
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