While the centre is preparing to lease out airports including Thiruvananthapuram through a public-private partnership, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has come up with sharp criticism saying that it would be “difficult” for the state to cooperate in implementing the decision.
Pinarayi Vijayan wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday to intervene and reconsider the handing over of the management and operation of the Thiruvananthapuram airport to the Adani group saying that the decision is ‘against the wishes of people’ in the state.
“In view of the unilateral decision taken by the Government of India without giving credence to the cogent arguments put forward by the State government, it will be difficult for us to offer co-operation to the implementation of the decision, which is against the wishes of the people of the State,” Vijayan said in a letter to Modi.
“I request your good self to intervene at this stage so that the decision taken now is reconsidered,”Vijayan said.
He pointed out that the decision was taken “ignoring the repeated requests” of the state government to entrust the management of the airport with the special purpose vehicle (SPV) “in which state government is the major stakeholder”.
The Union cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for leasing out airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram through public-private partnership (PPP). Adani Enterprises had won the rights to run six airports — Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati — through the PPP model after a competitive bidding process in February 2019.
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