Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Dec 30: Questioning the rationale behind excluding Bhubaneswar from the draft Civil Aviation Policy proposed by the Union ministry of civil aviation, tourism and culture minister Ashok Panda said confining the idea of hubs to only six airports in the country will be regressive and uneconomical. Panda, who attended a meeting on the draft Civil Aviation Policy in New Delhi which was chaired by Union civil aviation minister P Ashok Gajapati Raju, said, “The six metros which are proposed to act as hubs under this draft policy are already suffering from high levels of population and traffic congestion. The idea is regressive and uneconomical as flights will have to wait for long to get landing clearance at these busy airports.”
“The Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the state government have already spent public money on the construction and operation of an international airport in Bhubaneswar. The state government has reduced value-added tax (VAT) on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) from 20 per cent to five per cent as per the Centre’s suggestions. Serious audit objections will arise for spending public resources on a plan that the Union government had conceived, pushed and eventually repudiated,” Panda said.
Stating that a Central notification on Bhubaneswar as an international airport was issued in November 2013, Panda said there is a need to shift focus to cities like Bhubaneswar that have surplus capacities which can be leveraged without additional social, economic and ecological costs.
