The Indian government seeks to raise Rs 20,000 crore through asset monetisation by opening at least 12 airports for private investments, according to the sources.
How Did This Happen?
In fact, the aviation ministry is set to attract private bids for airports like Kolkata, Indore, Vijayawada and others in a bid to improve airport infrastructure across the country.
More asset monetisation is expected to be announced during the Union budget 2023 under the National Asset Monetisation scheme.
As part of this scheme, 12 more airports are expected to be privatized and this will be revealed in the Budget to be presented on February 1, 2023 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Raising Money Through Asset Monetization
It appears that the aviation ministry has been tasked to generate Rs 20,000 crore through asset monetisation.
Besides this, they have also set an ambitious goal to invest around Rs 9800 crore over a period of the next 4-5 years to improve and enhance the aviation infrastructure.
Considering this latest development, a major chunk for all this will come from airport privatization.
Sources said that this seems to be the reason that in the upcoming Union Budget announcement will be made that will attract private investment in the aviation sector.
Further indicating that a list of around 11-12 airports have been prepared and that will be floated for airport privatization.
This list includes airports like Raipur, Jabalpur, Vijayawada, Kolkata, Indore etc.
It is noteworthy here that these are some of the important airports that will be floated for privatization.
It seems that the cabinet note is ready and post the announcement in the union budget, this could be sent for cabinet approval.
With this move of airport privatization, the ministry aims to generate more than Rs 8000 crore.
Aside from this initiative, drones are another key area of thrust for the aviation ministry.
Considering the same, the PLI scheme is announced for drones and drone components earlier with a budgetary outlay of Rs 120 crore will be expanded.
According to the sources, this PLI scheme could be raised to Rs 200-250 crore and will give a major fillip to startups in this thriving sector.
Besides this, another set of funds will be allocated to the UDAN scheme that aims to connect smaller cities to the national network by air.
