New policy being worked on to propel growth of Indian aviation sector: Ajit Singh

13 Mar 2012 Evaluate

The government is working on a new policy to propel Indian aviation sector among top five markets in the world by providing access to safe and affordable air services with a strong regulatory framework and world-class infrastructure facilities, as per civil aviation minister Ajit Singh. The ministry will also consider the proposal to work out a separate air cargo policy as it is expected that 200 freighter aircraft will be required in the next 20 years to meet the industry’s demand.

The aviation industry is also keen that civil aviation be granted ‘infrastructure status’ and aviation turbine fuel be notified as declared goods (of special importance) with uniform central sales tax of only 4% across the country. Further, significant investments should be made in terms of construction of new airports, expansion and modernisation of existing ones, improvement in connecting infrastructure (road, metro and sea link) and better airspace management to help the aviation industry grow as airlines are expected to add 370 aircraft worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore by 2016-17.

As per the industry body ASSOCHAM, attracting domestic investments and easing norms on foreign direct investments are essential so that the sector can grow annually by 8% and also raise freight traffic from 23.5 lakh tonnes now to 70 lakh tonnes in the next ten years. It is also keen that land be demarcated for air cargo villages at airports or nearby regions to help raise freight traffic. Further cargo facilities at tier II and III cities as alternate growth centres should be developed.

ASSOCHAM has recently submitted an action plan to bail out the civil aviation sector from current financial crisis. Indian carriers catered to 5.4 crore domestic and 1.3 crore international passengers in 2010-11. But in spite of enormous growth and increasing trend towards moving to the low cost model, airlines suffered a loss of over Rs 20,000 crore in the past three years. 

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