Adani will buy 25 more airports after the elections, was the plan leaked before time?
Hash#ag News Bureau, May 29,2024
Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh made an important tweet on May 28 on X. In which he said- The grace of the outgoing Prime Minister has already made the Adani Group the only private airport operator in the country. Now Adani has leaked the Modi government’s evil plan to ‘sell’ another 25 airports. These public assets built with taxpayers’ money are being sold to the ‘Tempo Man’ for a pittance.
Jairam Ramesh said that the India Janabandhan government coming to power will get a strict JPC probe conducted into the Modani scam. Ramesh has also given the link of a financial newspaper with his tweet, where it is reported that how the government will hand over more than two dozen airports of the country to the private sector by 2025 i.e. next year. Let us know what the Financial Express has written in its report. Only then will the allegations of Congress and Jairam Ramesh be confirmed.
Financial Express has reported that Adani Airport Holdings (AAHL) is preparing to privatize at least 25 airports. According to a presentation by Adani Enterprises, the Airports Authority of India (AAI), a government entity, plans to issue tenders to sell or transfer 30-35 airports to the private sector by 2025. Adani Airport Holdings intends to expand its portfolio by participating in this government tender process.
Adani’s company AAHL was handed over some airports in 2019, which it is operating. These are Trivandrum, Mangaluru, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow and Guwahati airports. That is, when Modi became the Prime Minister in the second term, the government sold the government airports. The biggest buyer of which was the Adani Group. In 2021, Adani’s company also acquired Mumbai Airport. It had taken Mumbai Airport from GVK Group. Now Adani’s company controls 23% of the total passenger traffic in India. That is, Adani has a 23 percent share of passenger traffic.
Government Airports to Be Sold After the Elections
According to a Financial Express report, 30-35 government airports will be privatized after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The newspaper cited Saurabh Shah, Deputy Chief Financial Officer of Adani Enterprises (AEL), who stated, “We will definitely look at the airports coming up for privatization after the elections. We will bid 100% for projects at those airports that are key to strengthening our network.”
Airports Targeted for Privatization
Several private sector companies, including Adani, have their eyes on select government airports. These include major airports such as Chennai, Bhubaneswar, Amritsar, and Varanasi, as well as smaller airports like Dharamshala and Jharsuguda, some of which have high passenger traffic volumes.
Political Controversy
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly raised concerns about government airports being handed over to Adani. On February 7, 2023, he remarked, “There is talk of only one person in the country from airport to apple,” questioning the link between Prime Minister Modi and the Adani Group. Gandhi focused his criticism on Adani while speaking on the motion of thanks for the President’s address.