The Airports Authority of India has commissioned a GPRS–enabled electronic cash transaction facility at the Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad as a part of its efforts to make this feature available across all its airports in the country.

This facility is aimed at supporting the requirements of cash transactions for collection of airport charges from non-scheduled operators at the Begumpet airport in Hyderabad. Apart from being GPRS-enabled, it has facility to handle multiple currencies and provides the advantage of credit of 45 days to non-scheduled operators who pay through their credit cards.

With the commissioning of the Electronic Data Collection terminal at the airport, the whole process of collection of charges, which was hitherto in the form of only cash, often in different currencies, can now be made through credit or debit card transactions, G.Asok Kumar, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Civil Aviation.

A pilot project to have a similar wi-fi enabled collection facility is being developed. This would enable the Air Traffic Control (ATC) official to go and collect the fee in the cockpit of the plane that lands at the airport, making it swift and easy, Kumar said speaking at India Aviation 2014.

This feature is particularly useful in airports such as Thiruvananthapuram and Goa where a number of foreign tourists land in private jets. With the Government also liberalising visa norms wherein visitors from select countries can secure visas on arrival, this feature along with electronic transfer system will add to their convenience.

“More than 1,117 jets landed in Goa alone last year and with easing up of visa norms and more such convenient features, we see the number of jets landing in the country go up in due course,” he said.

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