Use HAL airport, pay Rs 500 into a black hole

Use HAL airport, pay Rs 500 for Devanahalli
Times of India

New Delhi: The government wants air travellers to pay for developing greenfield airports. The civil aviation ministry is planning to impose a fee of around Rs 500 on all air passengers using airports to raise funds for developing greenfield airports. The proceeds from this cess — Advance Development Fee (ADF) — will be collected in a separate pool that will be used for funding new airport ventures, ministry sources said.

“We plan to start collecting this fee from all passengers using the existing HAL airport in Bangalore. The proceeds will be used to partly fund the government’s investment in the greenfield airport at Devanahalli, near Bangalore,” the source said. A similar levy will be charged from users of airports in cities where the ministry has started the exercise of developing greenfield projects.

“The ministry has decided to cap the cess at Rs 500. We will be notifying the creation of this fund soon,” a source said. The fund is proposed to be managed by a high-powered committee of government,” the sources added. The fee will be collected from passengers embarking from a particular airport.

The tenure for the levy of ADF, official sources said, could start even before the commissioning of the greenfield project. The government has already initiated the process of constructing greenfield airports in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mopa (Goa), Navi Mumbai, Chakan (Pune), Kannur (Kerala) and Kanpur.

BE READY TO PAY MORE
Rs 500 will be collected from a passenger embarking from a particular airport.
The money collected will be used to partly fund the development of greenfield airports.
Proceeds from the ‘Advance Development Fee’ will be collected in a separate pool.
The tenure for the levy of the fee could start even before the airports are commissioned.

Sindhia promises airport work in three months’ time

A day after former chief minister S.M. Krishna expressed anguish over the delay in Bangalore International Airport implementation, industries and civil aviation minister P.G.R. Sindhia told a UK trade mission that work on the project would commence in the next two-three months.

The trade mission — Black Country Chamber and Business Links — met Sindhia on Friday morning to explore investment options. The minister reportedly told them that all requisite clearances for the Airport project had been obtained. He told them that work would commence in the next 60-80 days.

He said the focus was on improving air connectivity within the state. “We are improving the airport infrastructure at Mangalore and Belgaum, which have tremendous investment potential,’’ he told them. Besides, Sindhia assured the delegation that Bangalore’s infrastructure would improve in the coming days. “Nobody had projected the economic growth of the City at such a fast rate. There were no plans to meet the growing demands of the industry sector. However, we intend to set right the anomalies over a period of time,’’ he added.