"This has been cleared (by the civil aviation ministry)... consultants have been appointed (for the purpose) and the financial advisors are working on it," Ajay Prasad, civil aviation secretary said at the second Indo-US Economic Summit in New Delhi on Thursday.
Maintaining that the modernisation of Chennai and Kolkata airports would be taken up soon, he said the process for Delhi and Mumbai was going on track and "we will finalise the arrangements and hand over these two airports to the joint venture companies by the year-end".
He said the first phase of modernisation of the Delhi airport would have to be completed "well before 2010" when the Commonwealth Games are scheduled.
Observing that 30 other airports had been identified for development and would cover all major metros and state capitals, he said as the estimated cost would be around Rs 40,000 crore, the AAI would enter into joint ventures with private parties.
The equity ratio would be decided on a case-to-case basis for each airport and it could even be that the entire work was handled by the AAI and the state agencies at those airports where private parties were not interested, Prasad said.