Cabinet asks for consensus on aviation regulator

New Delhi, Oct 16 (UNI) The union cabinet today asked the defence and civil aviation ministries to sort out differences on setting up an independent regulator for the airline industry.

Home minister Shivraj Patil, defence minister Pranab Mukherjee, finance minister P Chidambaram and civil aviation minister Praful Patel will now iron out differing opinions.

The grouping will not be a group of ministers (GoM) in a classic sense, Mr Patel told reporters. Recently, civil aviation secretary Ajay Prasad had said that a bill to set up the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) will be introduced during winter session of parliament.

The AERA is expected to deal with issues of pricing and competition in airports, particularly in view of private companies entering the airport arena. The need for a regulator for the aviation sector has been necessitated in view of the rapid growth the airline industry is witnessing.

The increased passenger and cargo traffic has posed new challenges in the area providing adequate infrastructure at airports.

The challengers include expansion of capacity at existing airports, upgradation and modernisation of metro and non-metro airports, development of new greenfield airports, induction of modern technology for efficient handling of aircraft, passengers and cargo at airports, upgradation of communication and navigation systems (CNSs) and air traffic management (ATM).

The number of domestic air passengers jumped 27.9 per cent in 2005-06 to 50.98 million while the number of international passengers moved up 15.45 per cent to 22.37 million.

UNI SU PV HT1440