Jaipur Airport to be managed through PPP mode

Jaipur: Jaipur International Airport will be among the six airports in the country that will be managed on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

The central government has selected Jaipur and five more airports – Lucknow, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangalore under the project claiming that it will boost infrastructure and facilities for passengers.

Jaipur Airport is currently operating nearly 140 flights on a daily basis. Nearly 50 lakh passengers travel via Jaipur Airport every year. The passenger footfall has increased tremendously over the past 7-8 years.

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

But it is not for the first time that the PPP mode has been mooted for Jaipur airport. Earlier tenders were invited, but private companies didn’t either show any interest or offer adequate rates.

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

Jaipur International Airport got ahead of Lucknow and many other airports in the country in terms of number of daily scheduled flights, according to data released by the Airport Authority of India in March this year. A total of 69 scheduled flights are being operated from Jaipur Airport on a daily basis. Of them, 60 flights are domestic, while nine are international.

Lucknow has slid behind Jaipur on the list. Delhi was ranked number one with 641 flights followed by Mumbai (459 flights), Bengaluru (320 flights), Chennai (251 flights), Hyderabad (228 flights), Kolkata (224 flights), Kochi (110 flights), Ahmedabad (99 flights), Pune (87 flights), Goa (75 flights) and Lucknow (64 flights).