The Government continues to undertake several measures to make the civil aviation sector a major attraction and to develop it as a major partner in the national economy. These include the following:
(i) The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has taken up development programme to spend around Rs. 25,000 crores in next 4-5 years for expansion and modification of existing terminals, new terminals, expansion or strengthening of existing runways, aprons, Airport Navigation Services (ANS), control towers, technical blocks etc.
(ii) Three Public Private Partnership (PPP) airports at Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru have undertaken major expansion plan to the tune of Rs. 30,000 Crores by 2025. Additionally, Rs. 36,000 Crores have been planned for investment in the development of new Greenfield airports across the country under PPP mode.
(iii) Government of India (GoI) has accorded ‘in-principle’ approval for setting up of 21 Greenfield Airports across the country. So far, eight Greenfield airports namely, Shirdi in Maharashtra, Durgapur in West Bengal, Pakyong in Sikkim, Kannur in Kerala, Orvakal in Andhra Pradesh, Kalaburagi in Karnataka, Sindhudurg in Maharashtra and Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh have been operationalized.
(iv) Under Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), also known as the Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) Scheme, as on 24 Nov 2021, 393 routes have commenced connecting 62 unserved and underserved airports, including 2 water aerodromes and 6 heliports.
(v) Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate reduced to 5% from 18% for domestic Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) services.
(vi) A conducive aircraft leasing and financing environment has been enabled.
(vii) The domestic capacity deployment of domestic carriers has been restored to full, as in pre-Covid times.
(viii) Improvement in air navigation infrastructure at Indian airports is being carried out.
(ix) The number of freighter aircraft deployed by Indian carriers has increased from 7 in 2018 to 28 in 2021. As a result, the share of Indian carriers in international freighter movements to and from India increased from 2% to 19% over the last two years.
This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Civil Aviation V. K. Singh in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha recently.
