Adani Group emerges highest bidder for Guwahati airport

Adani Group has emerged as the highest bidder to operate Guwahati airport, a senior AAI official said Tuesday. This comes a day after the group emerged as the highest bidder for five other state-owned airports.  "Adani Group has put in the highest bid of Rs 160 as per passenger fee for Guwahati airport. This means that Adani Group has won all six airports that were put up for privatisation," the official at Airports Authority of India (AAI) said. 

At Rs 155, the second highest bid was put jointly by National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) and Zurich Airport International AG. The third and fourth place was taken by bids from AMP Capital and GMR Airport Ltd, at Rs 136 and Rs 59, respectively.  PNC Infratech's bid at Rs 18 was the lowest one for Guwahati airport.

The AAI selected the winner on the basis of highest "per-passenger fee" offered to it. The bids for five other airports - Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Lucknow, Mangaluru and Jaipur - were opened on Monday in which Adani Group emerged as the highest bidder.

Diversified Adani group, which has interests in ports, shipping, power and other key infrastructure with USD 11 billion annual revenue, would be entering the airport sector by bagging a 50-year contract to run these six airports.

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The government last year put up these six AAI-run airports for privatisation under the public private partnership mode.  These six airports will be handed over to Adani Group after completion of formalities, the authority said.

"We are delighted to win the bids (Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangaluru airports) invited by AAI in December for managing these airports under the PPP model," the Adani Group said in a statement Monday.

AAI said the group offered per passenger fee of Rs 177, Rs 174, Rs 171, Rs 168 and Rs 115 for Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangaluru airports, respectively. A total of 32 technical bids were received from 10 companies to operate the six airports.