MoCA’s 100-day plan for aviation

JyotiradityaScindia, Union Minister, Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), has unveiled a 100-day plan to boost the aviation sector in the country, which has suffered a major setback. Its plan is to develop four airports: in Kushinagar – which will be the focal point for Buddhist tourism, Dehradun, Agartala and of course the Jewar airport.

NishaVerma

JyotiradityaScindia has revealed that the ministry’s 100-day plan will be based on three foundations— infrastructure, policy targets and reforms initiatives. “We have a 100-day plan for the Ministry based on which we’ll be answerable to the stakeholders transparently. The plan is a result of the vision of Prime Minister and includes inputs from all our stakeholders. We constituted separate advisory groups for all sections of the aviation industry and after combined consultation, we have made this 100-days plan.This 100-day scheme will carry on from 30th August to 30th November,” he shared.

Scindia also revealed, of the total 16 areas, four come under infrastructure development, 8 relate to policy and four are under reforms in the aviation sector. Moreover, the minister announced that six heliports would be developed in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand under the regional air connectivity scheme UDAN.

“There’s a complete ecosystem in civil aviation sector – with airlines, airport operators, we have MROs where maintenance, repair and overall is done. There are flying-training organisations, the cargo sector, ground handling sector, aircraft manufacturing sector,” he said.

Infrastructure and airports

As far as infrastructure is concerned, MoCA will develop four airports. “The first airport will be in Kushinagar, a `225 crore project, which will have the landing capacity for Airbus 321 and Boeing 737 aircraft. This would make, Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh, the focal point of the Buddhist circuit. Another airport terminal will come up in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, where ` 457 crore will be invested. In comparison to the current 250 passengers, the new terminal building would be able to handle1,800 passengers,” he said.

In addition, a new terminal will be constructed at Agartala in the state of Tripura, and an amount of Rs 490 crores is being invested for the same. Scindia revealed that from 500 passengers per hour, it will be able to handle 1,200 passengers per hour. The fourth airport is the Jewar airport in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, which is being made at the cost of Rs 30,000 crores.

Under UDAN, Scindia revealed that, there will be five airports that will be operationalised, which are Keshod (Gujarat), Deoghar(JharkhandGondia (Maharashtra), Sindhudurg (Maharashtra), Kushinagar (Uttar Pradesh). Apart from that six heliports would be established in the states of Himachal Pradesh [Sanjoli(Shimla), Sase (Manali), Mandi, Baddi] and Uttarakhand [Haldwani, Almora].

New initiatives

He also announced that 50 new routes will also be operationalised under UDAN. “In fact, 30 of these routes will be operationalised by October 2021.

In addition, Scindiaunveiled  new policy for Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) activities.

AirSewa 3.0

Under the AirSewa grievance redressal system, said Scindia, “There has been 93% reduction in pending grievances, which has reduced from 1354 in July to only 92 in August. The AirSewa 2.0, which was enabled since 15th August 2021, the closure of grievances happened not only at airline’s level, but also by passengers.”

He announced that on 30th September AirSewa 3.0 will be launched. “Under this,we are deciding on the process for grievance escalation in airline companies as well, so that higher officers cancheck and close those grievances. On our portal, against every airline and every airport, their pending grievances will be given, so that the officers or departments are answerable for closing them. We are also putting this data on our website so as to promote the AirSewa portal.”