December 12, 2017 TnH Global

India is the third largest in air passenger traffic says Minister

The NDA government is making all efforts to tap the huge growth potential in the aviation sector, Union Minister of Civil Aviation P Ashok Gajapathi Raju has said.

Speaking at the inauguration of a three-day international conference on ‘Bird/Wildlife Strike Prevention’, organised by the World Birdstrike Association (WBA)-South Asia on Monday, Raju said India, with 10 crore air passengers, was the third largest nation in the world in air passenger traffic, and there was potential for India to reach the top position.

Focus on infrastructure

Infrastructure should be given a huge boost for India to reach the top spot, he added. There are 70 operational airports in the country and 14 were developed in the past few years. An additional 65 are being developed, Raju said.

Referring to the perils of bird/wildlife hits to aircraft, the Minister said it was not a new development. “The speed of planes has gone up and noise levels have come down, thereby confusing the birds,” he said.

Civic bodies should prevent dumping of garbage around airports. The density of population around airports has gone up and the downtime of aircraft is also going up. All these factors need to be considered in finding remedies to the problem, the Minister said.

AP Principal Secretary, Energy, Ajay Jain said India was poised to become the number one in the world in air passenger traffic by 2030. He spoke on the measures being taken by the State government to improve air connectivity from AP and to increase the air passenger traffic such as reduction of VAT on aviation turbine fuel to 1 per cent. Lalita Vaswani, Vice-President, WBA South Asia, and WBA-India member Raman Emani attended.

News Source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/