The civil aviation ministry is hopeful of privatising six airports – at Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow and Guwahati, ahead of Lok Sabha polls in 2014. The ministry has already initiated pre-bid consultations with prospective bidders.

When asked whether the entire process of bidding, selection of the bidder and the award of the project would be completed before the general elections likely early next year, civil aviation secretary KN Shrivastava said that the government is optimistic about doing it within the time- frame.

Meanwhile, airports in the race for this have raised several issues including those relating to workforce and returns to be given to Airports Authority of India (AAI). The private parties, which are in the race to participate in the operation, management and transfer of these airports, have also raised several issues including those relating to workforce and returns to be given to AAI.

The Ministry's move to hand over these airports, developed by the AAI, in the next 2-3 months suffered a setback with the sale of bid documents for Chennai and Lucknow airports being postponed by several weeks.