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The Government's new civil aviation policy is expected to be ready in the next five months, the Civil Aviation Secretary, Mr Nasim Zaidi, said at an Assocham event on Wednesday.
Applicable for 10 years, this new policy will focus on attracting higher private sector investment into the ailing sector and improving the cost viability for the stakeholders. It will also look to set up a promotion board for air cargo.
“We have decided to frame a new civil aviation policy that will help meet the challenges of the next decade. The challenges are wide-ranging from viability of the sector to human resources. The policy will encompass all that,” Mr Zaidi said.
He added that his Ministry is also working on a “economic regulatory framework” for monitoring air fares. This would look more at legality of changes in fares by airlines and not work on fixing exact fares.
With debts mounting daily for airlines such as Air India and Kingfisher, the sector is under huge pressure from high fuel (ATF) prices and taxation.
Air Cargo
Mr Zaidi also said that air freight stations at Mumbai and Chennai will be made operational soon to keep up with the booming traffic.
“We need to decongest cargo terminals with simplification of customs procedures, greater use of mechanised handling and speedy clearances of shipments. India has the potential to emerge as a global transhipment hub,” he said.
According to Assocham, the air cargo industry has been averaging an annual growth of 12 per cent. The total cargo handled by domestic airports in 2010-11 was 2.33 million tonnes, up from 0.5 mt in 2005-06.
While the domestic cargo is expected to increase from 0.8 mt to 1.7 mt by 2016-17, the international cargo traffic is projected to move up from 1.5 mt to 2.7 mt in the same period.
Other industry officials at the event said that air freight stations will eventually have to be moved to tier 2 and tier 3 cities to offset limitation of space and decongest warehouses at the existing main airports.
As the infrastructure sector expands to keep up with rising passenger and cargo traffic, investments of Rs 1.5 lakh crore will be required in the next 15 years in the aviation space.
India's scheduled airlines have 430 planes now, but would need 1,500 by 2025, said the chamber.
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