GMR Airports as highest bidder for greenfield airport in Andhra Pradesh

GMR Airports Limited (GAL), a subsidiary of GMR Infrastructure Ltd, has emerged as the highest bidder for building, operating and managing a greenfield international airport at Bhogapuram, Andhra Pradesh.

The Andhra Pradesh Airports Development Corporation Limited (APADCL), had initiated the bid process for the new airport at Bhogapuram in November 2018.

The project involves design, build, finance, construction, development, upgradation, modernization, operation and maintenance of the Bhogapuram airport for a period of 40 years.

As part of the qualification process, APADCL had shortlisted seven applicants including GMR Group, GVK, DoIt Infra, I-Investment, NIIF, Essel and Reliance Infra. GMR Group, GVK and DoIt Infra submitted their financial bids.

In 2018, the existing civil enclave at Vishakapatnam naval airfieldhandled 2.33 million passengers and 5,000 tons of cargo.

Over the past 4 years the passenger traffic at the Vizag airport has grown at an annual rate of 14%. It ranks 5th amongst the custom airports in India in terms of Cargo traffic.

The proposed greenfield airport site lies on the border of Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram districts, and is approximately 45 kms from Visakhapatnam and 25 km from Vizianagaram.

Adani Group yesterday emerged as the highest bidder for the privatisation projects of five airports-Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mangalore and Trivandrum, put out by the state-run Airports Authority of India.