3 - Ministry of Civil Aviation

CHAPTER - 7STRATEGY AND SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS7.1 Enhancing Affordability, Connectivity and General AviationThe Government of India (GoI) aims to provide world class infrastructure facilities andefficient, safe and reliable air services to meet the requirements of domestic and foreign tradeand tourism, and to meet connectivity requirements of remote and inaccessible areas on apriority`basis. 14 In line with this, the Committee has been 'requested to address inter aliaaspects such as (a) affordability and connectivity 'in the domestic aviation sector; (b)development of regional air connectivity within the country; (c) promotion of general aviation;and (d) aviation training. In fact, these considerations have underpinned the Committee's.1deliberations on the various operational segments and institutions in the civil aviation sector.The Committee found it useful to view the aviation sector as comprising of two distinct andseparate types of services. The first, a core set of services, to be operated as a business and runon commercial principles and the second, aimed at providing connectivity in consonance withsocial and distributive objectives, to be supported through direct and transparent subsidiesfrom the government. The Committee would like to highlight that recommendations in the11 earlier chapters, together, provide a comprehensive strategy — consisting of the four distinctelements — aimed at making air transport affordable and enhancing air connectivity across thevarious regions of the country:(a) Immediate measures that are aimed at lowering system costs of the civil aviation1 sector. These measures inter alia include: a liberal fiscal regime; allowing airlinesto source ATF from the supplier of their choice; and improving coordination withother Ministries such as Home Affairs and Defence (Chapter 2).1 (b) Encourage private participation and competition in air transport services, with aview to lowering fares and, thereby, enhancing affordability. In this regard, theCommittee recommends the abolition of route dispersal guidelines; lowering ofk,entry barriers; liberalisation of investment norms for foreign equity and foreignairlines; further liberalisation of the international air transport segment startingwith permission for domestic private airlines to operate international services;early privatisation of IA, AI and PHHL; and concessions , to regional air services,helicopter operations and general aviation (Chapter 3). Facilitate privateparticipation in the provision of airport services to the maximum possible extent,so as to encourage aggressive pursuit_ of efficiency and facilitate investment inadditional capacity (Chapter 4).(c) As regards ATC services, enhance operational freedom to enable rapid adoption ofmodern technologies, through unbundling of ATC services from the AAI andvesting them with a government-owned corporation (Chapter 5). Apart from safety4 Tenth Five Year Plan 2002-07, The Planning Commission, Government.of . India.49