NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked the civil aviation ministry to fast-track the development of the second airport near major cities to tackle the growing passenger demand at the existing ones and also to prepare a roadmap for end-to-end privatisation of airports in lines with Delhi and Mumbai airports in the next five years.There have been talks of developing seven new airports including in Delhi-NCR and Mumbai to meet the growing demand of travellers. Preparatory work has already started for a major airport at Jewar in the National Capital Region to decongest the IGI airport in the national capital.According to government’s think tank Niti Aayog, passenger traffic will outpace the available and augmented capacity in 2018-19. Estimates suggest in 2018-19, the total passenger demand would be around 360 million against the capacity to handle 350 million passengers. While the capacity growth has been at the rate of about 12%, traffic growth has been approximately 15%.This has forced the government to fast-track the building of second airports in and around major cities. The aviation ministry has also been asked to compare airport productivity with global benchmarks to improve efficiencies.After realising that partial privatisation of airports has not been successful, the civil aviation ministry has been asked to go for end-to-end privatisation and to kick off the process by January 2019. The privatisation of operation and maintenance (O&M) for Jaipur and Ahmedabad airports has been pending for the past three years.Sources said the PM has asked the ministry to explore options how jobs of existing workers at the government-run airports can be protected even when a new private player steps in.