The Punjab council of ministers has urged the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Union civil aviation minister, Praful Patel and Union commerce minister, Kamal Nath to take immediate steps to ensure that ongoing international as well as domestic flights to Raja Sansi Airport, Amritsar were not discontinued and expansion work of Amritsar Airport be completed at the earliest.
Disclosing this here on Friday, chief minister?s media advisor Harcharan Bains said the resolution was moved by the information & public relations minister Bikram Singh Majithia, which was unanimously adopted by the council of ministers in a meeting held here on Thursday evening under the chairmanship of Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal.
The resolution urged the union civil aviation ministry to immediately lower the landing charges and make it lower than Delhi airport so that Delhi airport could be decongested besides helping the NRI population of Punjab.
The council of minister apprised the Centre as stoppage of international flights to Amritsar would adversely affect the trade, industry and overall economy of Amritsar causing lot of distress in economic scenario of Punjab economy.
Union commerce minister Kamal Nath should direct his ministry to issue requisite notifications so that duty drawback claims for cargo booked from Raja Sansi Airport were cleared within 7 days as being done in Delhi airport, the resolution said.
It said presently, dutydrawback claims from Amritsar airport were cleared in 3-4 months and businessmen were not opting this airport as they don?t want to block their money for a longer period.
The resolution said basic purpose of starting international flights from Amritsar was to decongest Delhi Airport as 29% international air traffic at Delhi was from Punjab.