The draft civil aviation policy will be sent to the Union Cabinet for its decision in the next two weeks, Rajiv Nayan Choubey, Secretary, Civil Aviation, said on Tuesday.

This means that the roll out of the policy has been delayed by at least two months as the Ministry of Civil Aviation had earlier planned to seek the Union Cabinet’s approval in March in order to implement various aspects of the policy, including the regional air connectivity scheme (RCS), from April 1, when the new fiscal year started.

The scheme seeks to promote regional air connectivity with the Centre and States providing subsidies to airlines which are able to cap their fares at ₹2,500 per hour of flying. The Centre will bear 80 per cent of the cost of the subsidy with the States putting in 20 per cent to promote regional air connectivity in their States.

Choubey, however, feels that it would be wrong to say that the policy is getting delayed as so far there has never been an integrated civil aviation policy and coming up with an integrated policy for the first time takes time.

“There are 55 Ministries at the Centre and 22 items which the policy addresses. We probably overestimated our ability to be able to bring all the Ministries on board in a short period of time,” a senior Government official said when asked about the reason for the delay in taking the policy to Cabinet. Even as it seeks to iron out the differences between the various Ministries, the Civil Aviation Ministry is simultaneously working on firming up the contours of RCS without waiting for Cabinet approval.

“In anticipation of the Cabinet giving its approval to the RCS scheme, the Ministry is fine tuning the same. If we are able to get the approval of the Cabinet for the policy in the early part of next month it should be possible for us to roll out the RCS immediately. If there are any changes which the Cabinet suggests we can incorporate them,” Choubey said.

Soon after the Cabinet nod, the Ministry will again hold stakeholder consultations to ensure that various stakeholders like air operators, airports and State governments where the RCS will be implemented are okay with its terms and references. Informal consultations on rolling out RCS have already been held with the State Governments of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. RCS will be available at airports from which airlines have withdrawn regular flights for at least two successive seasons or about a year, a senior Government official added.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW