Nagpur airport handover delayed
11 Aug 2007
The union civil aviation ministry has said it needs six months more to make up its mind whether to approve an MoU signed by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) on 18 December 2006, handing over Nagpur's B R Ambedkar International Airport to a joint venture company (JV) led by the Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC).
The ministry made a submission to the effect before the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court, in response to a petition questioning the delay in handing over the airport as well as speeding up work on the ambitious multi-modal international hub airport at Nagpur, (MIHAN) better known as the India cargo hub project.
The ministry's communication was presented to the court by additional solicitor general of India S K Mishra.
The MoU lays out the process of handing over the airport to a JV floated by AAI and MADC as a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to operate it. The issues of approval of the MoU and handing over of the airport to the JV were actively under consideration, Mishra told the High Court.
