Nagpur: Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport, Nagpur has now come fully under control of MIHAN India Limited (MIL), a joint venture of Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) and Airports Authority of India (AAI). Both MADC and AAI have 51 per cent and 49 per cent share holdings respectively.
MADC officials informed that with this take-over MIL has become the first State Government organisation to operate a major international airport in the country. Now, the major mandate for MIL will be to ‘privatise’ Nagpur Airport.
For the ‘privatisation’ of the airport, Request for Proposal (RfP) had to be issued to five shortlisted private parties. These five shortlisted companies include GVK Airport Developers Limited, PNC Infratech Limited, Tata Reality and Infrastructure Limited, GMR Airports Limited, and Essel Infra Project Limited. For the proposal, the State Cabinet has given its approval recently.
At the time of taking over of Nagpur Airport from AAI with effect from August 7, 2009, MIL had more than 150 employees from AAI who were placed at the disposal of MIL. Currently, there were about 101 AAI employees of whom only two were from Group ‘A’ and ‘B’ and the rest 99 belonged to Group ‘C’ and ‘D.
During a meeting held on June 7, 2017, Chairman of AAI, had decided to withdraw its manpower from Nagpur Airport with effect from August 31, 2017 evening. Therefore, MIL had to induct alternate manpower to take control of Nagpur Airport. The officials said that it was a smooth transition of duties and responsibilities from AAI to MIL. MIL management thanked the management and employees of AAI for their co-operation so far.
