Thiruvananthapuram, May 4 (IANS) Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), a public sector oil marketing company, will take 21 percent stake in the proposed airport in Kannur in north Kerala for Rs.170 crore, the Kerala government said Friday.
In the first phase of allotment, the state government has decided to issue share capital to the tune of Rs.784 crore. Of this, its share would be 26 percent, said Kerala’s Minister for Excise, Ports and Airports K. Babu.
With BPCL picking up a 21 percent stake, it will become the second-largest stakeholder in the airport after the state.
Others who have picked up stakes in the airport are state-owned Kerala State Beverages Corporation, Kerala Minerals and Metals and Kerala State Electricity Board.
The government has earmarked 49 percent of the shares (at a base price of Rs.100 each) for individuals.
“Those who want shares in the airport are free to apply,” said an official from the minister’s office.
A global tender for building of the runway would be released later this month and the first flight would touch down by 2015, the official said.
The release said Kannur International Airport Limited had been registered as a company. The Rs.1,000-crore airport would be build under the public-private partnership mode, with former secretary of the civil aviation ministry V. Thulasidas as its managing director.
The airport, a year after it opens, is expected to serve 1.5 million passengers and handle 86,000 tonnes of cargo.
