Maharashtra govt likely to take back 5 airports leased to Anil Ambani company

The Maharashtra government is going to take back five airports from Anil Ambani's Reliance Airport Developers Private Limited (RADPL) firm, the state's deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said in the Assembly. The Maharashtra government awarded the airports to RADPL, a subsidiary of Reliance Infrastructure led by Anil Ambani, for 30 years in 2009.The five airports include in Baramati, Nanded, Latur, Yavatmal, and Osmanabad. All of them are non-functional currently.

Anil Ambani's Reliance Airport Development Limited emerged as the highest bidder, securing the project for all five airports with a bid of Rs 63 crore in an auction conducted by the then Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government to enhance air connectivity in the state."We will seek the state advocate general’s opinion on whether we can take control again unilaterally," Fadnavis added.The Anil Ambani-led company also failed to clear its dues, leading the state government to seek the opinion of the advocate general to speed up the resolution.

Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis said, "RADPL is not doing maintenance of the airports and even not paying the statutory dues because of which Nanded airport was shut down. We will discuss the legalities of taking possession of the airports with the advocate general. The state government will also pay all the dues for the five airports and recover the amount from the firm".

Fadnavis made this announcement while responding to the issue of regional connectivity. Senior Congress leader Ashok Chavan said that the state has around 32 airports and airstrips, of them only 11 are functional. The Congress leader said that the Nanded airport was shut for quite some time, and added, "Even the Mumbai airport is not giving enough slots for flights to major cities, which has made intra-state traveling difficult".Fadnavis assured that they will try to get more slots at the Mumbai airport. It will soon have a high-level meeting with the Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) officials and would direct them to provide more slots for major cities of the state.  Fadnavis has also declared to form a nodal agency that will look after the development of the airports. The BJP leader said that the government has decided to build one helipad each in all the talukas (tehsil) and for which they have formed a committee to inspect the technical feasibility of the spots.