Nearly 12 years ago, the government had decided airport licences should be approved by the Cabinet. Citing security reasons, the Prime Minister?s Office took away from the civil aviation ministry the power to approve an airport project. On Thursday, the government went back on that decision to restore the powers of the Directorate General Of Civil Aviation to license airports, airstrips and heliports.
The centralisation merely increased the waiting period. There were 26 applications for renewal of airport licences before the powers were taken away from the DGCA. Another ten applications for fresh licences have come in since.
According to civil aviation ministry sources, the new ones include a proposal from Vedanta Alumina to set up an airstrip in Kalahandi in Orissa, one from AIIMS to set up a rooftop heliport and another from Aditya Birla hospital in Pune for a heliport. The older lot includes applications for a renewal of licences of air infrastructure at IIT Kanpur, Neyveli, and a heliport in Subrata Roy-promoted Sahara?s Amby Valley in Maharashtra.
In 1997, the PMO transferred to the Union Cabinet all decision-making powers on airport infrastructure on security concerns. Since every Cabinet proposal has to travel through additional levels of bureaucratic machinery, the delays just piled.
Meanwhile, the number air passengers in the country have grown substantially. Last year, the growth was about 32%, riding on low fares offered by start-up carriers. The number of airplanes in the country too is expected to go up, to 1,000 by the end of the year, from about 700 now.
The Cabinet now believes that giving powers back to the aviation regulator would lead to faster clearances of airports, as the aviation infrastructure is under immense pressure, owing to the rising number of flights and passengers.