New Delhi: In a written reply to the Lok Sabha on Thursday, Minister of State for Civil Aviation (Gen. (Dr) VK Singh revealed the government's plans to privatise 25 airports over the next five years under the National Monetization Pipeline (NMP).

According to the NMP, 25 airports, including Bhubaneshwar, Varanasi, Amritsar, Trichy, Indore, Raipur, Calicut, Coimbatore, Nagpur, Patna, Madurai, Surat, Ranchi, Jodhpur, Chennai, Vijayawada, Vadodara, Bhopal, Tirupati, Hubli, Imphal, Agartala, Udaipur, Dehrad

According to the Ministry of State, the airports were chosen because they matched the monetisation criteria, which include annual traffic of more than 0.4 million passengers in FY 2019 and 2020 and a significant ongoing, proposed capes plan as per the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP).

"The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has identified Tiruchirappalli (Trichy) International Airport in Tamil Nadu as one of 13 airports for operations, management, and development through Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode in the public interest and for better management of airports," according to a statement from the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

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