Minister of State (MoS) for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha has urged Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to bring aviation turbine fuel (ATF) under the purview of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. However, he said that the final call would be taken by the GST Council. He pointed out that that inclusion of ATF under new tax regime will give relief to airline players who facing financial woes at present.
The minister further said that despite being world’s fastest growing domestic aviation market, local carriers have been facing tough business conditions, especially with the rupee's depreciation and surging oil prices. He also said that as players look to woo more passengers with cheap fares, airlines have not been fully able to increase ticket prices. He indicated that ATF constitutes approximately 35-40 percent of operational cost of an airline in India.
The meeting was also attended by Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia and Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey. The meeting is called to discuss ways to lower input costs for airlines. When the one-nation-one-tax regime of GST was implemented in July last year, five commodities -- crude oil, natural gas, petrol, diesel, and ATF were kept out of its purview for the time being.