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New aviation bill to be introduced in winter session of Parliament

The Union government will place, in the winter session of Parliament, a comprehensive civil aviation policy bill envisaging improving infrastructural facilities in airports and setting up of regional airlines.

This was disclosed by Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayanthi Natarajan, while addressing the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Monday evening.

She said the facilities which required improvements were air traffic control systems, runways, safety, and development of fleet capacity. These would be under the control of the ministry, she added.

Calling upon the private sector units to invest in civil aviation, she said this was necessary to increase the fleet capacity, finetune airlines operations, and make the aviation field more competitive and meaningful.

While the ministry would strictly adhere by the Cabinet decision taken in April not to allow foreign equity in civil aviation, the minister said there would be no restriction on private sector investment.

Natarajan declared that tax incentives and tax holidays would be given to private operators willing to establish, in collaboration with state governments, regional airlines with 50-seater capacity planes as it was not viable for national carriers to run short-route services.

She appealed to the Madras Chamber to invest in setting up regional airlines to tap the anticipated increase in passenger and cargo traffic.

Ruling out any compromise on passenger safety and security, she said they were on top of the ministry's agenda. Airports would undergo technology upgradation including modernisation of radar facilities, she added.

Regretting that there was no budgetary support for the aviation sector, she said her ministry had to pay more than three to four times the international price for aviation turbine fuel because of the sales tax imposed by state governments. The Centre should allot at least 50 per cent of foreign travel tax for improvement of the airports, she added. She suggested that infrastructure status be accorded to the aviation sector similar to the telecom and power sectors.

The minister said while Indian Airlines had come out of the red, the same task was difficult for Air-India. The aim was to ultimately merge the two airlines, but that would take time since the two airlines had vastly different structures, hierarchies and salaries, she pointed out.

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