Sindhu Bhattacharya

New Delhi: New airports coming up in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore only will now require the approval of the Union Cabinet, but airport projects in any other location need not go through this lengthy process.

Explaining this aspect of the Greenfield Airport Policy to members of a Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Wednesday, civil aviation minister Praful Patel said an exception has been made in the case of these four cities, since there are existing contractual obligation with the airport operators of each, which need to be considered.

Any other greenfield airport, now needs the approval of a Steering Committee headed by the secretary, ministry of civil aviation.

During the meeting, Patel expressed concern over rising prices of aviation turbine fuel (ATF). Pointing out that domestic airlines have revised fares as many as eight times over the last few months, the minister said rising jet fuel prices are hurting passenger volume and load factors for airlines.

Patel has been trying to convince state governments to rationalise sales tax on ATF and some of them have already lowered it to 4%. This issue has been taken up at the Centre with the ministries of finance and petroleum, but to no avail.

Source : DNA