Will the name of Guwahati's airport - Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport (LGBI) - be relegated to the background and preceded by the name of the corporate behemoth, Adani Group, to which it has been leased out?
Days after taking charge of the three airports at Lucknow, Ahemadabad and Mangalore, on a lease of 50 years, Adani Airports' name has been prominently displayed in all of them and it precedes their actual names at nearly all the locations.
The move has raised eyebrows of airport unions which they allege doesn’t seem to conform to the terms of agreement of the lease.
According to the lease agreement signed between the Airport Authority of India and Adani Group, “The airport or any part thereof shall not be branded in any manner to advertise, display and reflect the name of the identity of the Concessionaire or its shareholders. The concessionaire undertakes that it shall not in any manner use the name or identity of the airport to advertise or display its own identity, brand equity or business interests including those of its shareholders."
The airport should be known, promoted, displayed advertised, and branded by the name of “Mangaluru International Airport” only at all times and the concessionaire shall at all times for purpose of advertisement, display, reflection or branding otherwise, will display the airport as such. If it intends to display its own name or its shareholders at the spots where other public notices are displayed for the users, the same should be preceded by the Authority’s name.
“When GVK and GMR took over the Delhi and Mumbai airports they tried to do the same thing, branding the entire airport with the company name. However, later on they had to remove it facing stiff opposition. Delhi Airport is now known only as Delhi International Airport Limited,” a senior AAI official told G Plus.
Adani Enterprises Ltd had emerged as the highest bidder and won the bids for the operation of six airports in India including the Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International (LGBI) airport Guwahati under the private-public partnership mode. The corporate house will carry out operations and maintenance related activities in these airports for a period of 50 years.
In September 2019, Adani Enterprises had announced that it has incorporated a new company called Adani Guwahati International Airport Ltd. where it will carry out operations and maintenance-related activities of the LGBI airport.
Airport privatisation started in India in September 2003 when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the prime minister approved a proposal to upgrade the country’s two largest airports, at Delhi and Mumbai, in the public-private- partnership (PPP) mode.
The government decided at that time that the private partner would be selected through an open and transparent competitive bidding process, and that the winning company would hold 74% stake in the joint venture (JV) company (with the AAI holding the remaining 26%) that would be responsible for executing the up gradation and development programme for the two airports.