Delhi airport expansion: DIAL raises Rs 2,000 cr from realty monetisation

The GMR group-run Delhi international airport (DIAL) has raised Rs 2,000 crore from real estate monetisation, which will help its on-going expansion plan, as the nation's largest airport is set to handle over 70 million passenger this fiscal year, a senior executive said Wednesday.

The country's busiest airport currently handles about 62 million passengers per annum against an installed capacity of 60 million, and 1.5 million tonne of cargo.

The proposed development of the Indira Gandhi international airport includes expansion of the existing three terminals, adding a new passenger and a cargo terminal each, and building a cargo city/village, apart from development of new runway and taxiway among others at an investment of Rs 16,000 crore.

The Delhi airport has raised about Rs 2,000 crore from realty monetization which will fetch it an annual rental income of Rs 360 crore. This will partly help fund the expansion, Sushil Modi, group chief financial officer GMR Infra, which sold around 45 percent in its GMR Airports for Rs 8,000 crore to the Tatas, and the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, said Wednesday.

He said both Delhi and Hyderabad airports, which have a combined cash balance of Rs 5,000 crore, are under major capacity ramp-up. The airports can also part-fund the expansion with internal accruals, he added.

There are bigger opportunities for more real estate monetisation which will substantially increase the cash flow and help the fund the expansion without adding much to the debt, he said.

The GMR-owned Hyderabad airport is also in an expansion mode and plans to expand the existing terminals and add a third runway, besides expansion of the cargo terminal, additional rapid exit taxiways, parallel taxiways and taxi lanes among others.

The airport with an installed capacity of 12 million is already serving 22 million passengers now and has plans to complete expansion in two phases-first to increase capacity to 40 million passengers by 2020 and to further increase to 50 million by 2028.

The Delhi airport, which is expanding from 66 million to 92 million passengers per annum, will require a capex of Rs 9,000 crore, while Hyderabad will require an investment of Rs 5,500 crore to ramp up its capacity from the present 12 million passengers to 30 million over the next four years.

Watch This Zee Business Video

In all probability, the Delhi airport will be closing fiscal 2019 with 70 million-plus passengers (against 62 million capacity), while Hyderabad will be sniffing at 22 million by March 31, against the existing capacity of 12 million passengers, which is about 80 percent more utilisation, Modi said.