The Hindu Business Line : Govt to clarify opening global skies to airline

THE Ministry of Civil Aviation is to clarify its position on the issues raised by a Parliamentary Standing Committee including its decision to open up international skies to a particular airline and granting it passage rights to some international routes on the opening day of its public offer.

It is reliably learnt that the Ministry is to utilise the opportunity provided by the `Speaker's directive' allowing the Minister to make a statement in the House on the issues that have been raised. The clarification is to come during the ongoing Budget session, scheduled to end on May 13. In the normal course, the Ministry would have given an Action Taken Report within three months of the standing committee report, which was tabled in Parliament on April 29.

The report held that it was not convinced by the reply given by the Ministry regarding its decision to open up international skies to a particular airline and granting it passage rights to some international routes on the opening day of its public offer.

While the report does not name the airline, the only carrier to go public in the recent past has been Jet Airways. The day the airline public issue opened reports also trickled in that it had been given permission to operate three times a week on the India-Belgium-US route.

Commenting on another issue, the standing committee recommended that the Government take a re-look at the modernisation and restructuring of the two metro airports so that the development and maintenance of other airports is not compromised.

The report points out that revenue generated by the Government from profit making airports (including Delhi and Mumbai) is used to fulfil the developmental needs of other airports.

Therefore, the committee said that it failed to understand how the Government would fulfil the developmental needs of other airports after the management of the two metro airports was passed on to joint venture companies.

The committee said that while it favoured restructuring of the two airports, it should not be done at the cost of other airports maintained by Airports Authority of India.

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