Maharashtra to take back 5 airports from Anil Ambani firm

Maharashtra would soon initiate the process of taking back the Latur, Osmanabad, Nanded, Yavatmal and Baramati airports awarded to Reliance Airport Development in August 2009 for development.

Senior ministers, comprising Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse and Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, discussed the lack of progress in developing these airports with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and have taken a decision in this regard.

Reliance Airport Development was the highest bidder at Rs 63 crore (Rs 630 million) for the five airports project, in an auction conducted by the previous Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government to promote air connectivity in Maharashtra.

Officials at the state industries department and executives of Maharashtra Airport Development Company, which would take charge of the airports, confirmed the development.

They, however, did not provide a deadline for the transfer.

E-mailed questions to the spokesperson of the Anil Ambani-led Reliance ADA Group went unanswered.

Reliance Sea Link One, a consortium of Reliance Infrastructure and Hyundai Engineering, had bagged the Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion) Worli-Haji Ali project in June 2010.

However, the project did not take off and subsequently was scrapped.

Reliance Infrastructure has also pulled out of a contract to build the second line of the Mumbai metro costing Rs 12,000 crore (Rs 120 billion).

The company and the state government executed a termination agreement to end the concession for the Charkop-Mankhurd-Bandra link.

Image: Anil Ambani. Photograph: Punit Paranjpe/Reuters