The Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) has asked the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Airports Authority of India to stop handing over the Lokapriya Gopinath Bardoloi International Airport in Guwahati to the Adani Group.
In a reminder to AAI Chairman Sanjeev Kumar and Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday, AJP general secretary Jagadish Bhuyan said the proposed privatisation of the airport would squeeze the already beleaguered travellers who are hit hard by the sharp drop in the economy and financial resources because of the pandemic.
“It has come to our attention that the airports given to Adani Group on lease for the next 50 years include Jaipur, Lucknow, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Bengaluru and Guwahati. Adani Group has already taken control of five of these,” Mr. Bhuyan said.
Apart from taking over the Mumbai International Airport Limited and an agency that works with the Lucknow Airport, the group has increased rates for the services tenfold, causing significant hardships for passengers, the AJP said. The group will eventually take over the remaining airports, including the one in Guwahati, it added.
‘Hurt and dismayed’
“We are hurt and dismayed by Centre’s unilateral and autocratic decision to privatise the airport named after a well-known freedom fighter and undivided Assam’s first Chief Minister Gopinath Bardoloi,” Mr. Bhuyan said.
“Privatising and making civil aviation expensive defeats the very purpose of the UDAN scheme since the Guwahati airport is central to regional connectivity in the Northeast,” he said.
