Adani Group takes over Lucknow airport operations from today

New Delhi: The Adani group would be taking over the operations, management and development of the airport at Lucknow's Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport from the AAI from Monday (November 2).

The Adani group has already taken over the operations Mangaluru in October while it would be taking over the operations for the Ahmedabad from November 11.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) previously said in its release that the Aviation Ministry has signed MoUs (memorandums of understanding) with three entities of the Adani group to provide services like customs, immigration and security at the aforementioned three airports.

The central government privatised six major airports -- Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati -- in February 2019. After a competitive bidding process, Adani Enterprises won the rights to run all of them.

Adani had quoted the highest bid for these airports, for operation, management and development under PPP for a lease period of 50 years as per the terms and conditions of the bid documents, an official release had said.

In July 2019, the Union Cabinet had approved the proposal for leasing out three airports - Mangaluru, Lucknow and Ahmedabad - to Adani Enterprises. On August 19 this year, the Union Cabinet approved the proposal for leasing out the other three airports to the Ahmedabad-based group.

"These projects will bring efficiency in delivery, expertise, enterprise and professionalism apart from harnessing the needed investments in the public sector. This will also result in enhanced revenues to the AAI, which may lead to further investment by AAI at Tier II and Tier III cities and economic development in these areas in terms of job creation and related infrastructure," a cabinet release had said.