Jaipur airport employees plan litigation against handing over management to Adani group

Jaipur: Jaipur International airport along with four other airports including Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, and Mangalore will now be managed by the Adani group under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode. The bidding was conducted on Monday in which over seven multinational companies took part.

The employees have threatened to intensify their agitation against. They said that they are planning to file a petition in Rajasthan high court against the privatization of the airport management.

The airport employee’s union staged a hunger strike port in protest of the privatization of six major airports in the country.

The union members are demanding that that the management of these airports should stay under the Airport Authority of India and not under any private firm.

According to the officials, the Adani group placed a bid of Rs 175 per passenger for the five airports and no other company could go beyond the rate. The five airports will be under the Adani group for the next 50 years.

The bidding was organized and supervised by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) on Monday.

The central government announced in November that Jaipur and five more airports of the country – Lucknow, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, and Mangalore will be managed on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode. The government claimed that it would boost infrastructure and facilities for passengers.

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told media persons in Delhi while releasing the government order in November that the decision was taken after the PPP mode was successfully implemented at some other airports in the country. The PPP model led to an increase in passenger footfall.

Officials believe that the PPP model will lead to increased facilities at luggage screening counter, check-in counter, and washrooms.