Itanagar:Arunachal Pradesh has urged the Centre to develop airports and other ancillaries in the state in its new aviation policy.
The matter was raised by the Arunachal Civil Avia-tion Minister Thangwang Wangham in a meeting for consultation of the Draft Civil Aviation Policy, convened by the Union Minister of Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju in New Delhi yesterday.
Wangham proposed the ministry to include a provision for construction of new airports of “short take off and landing” type in the prospective locations of the state, an official communique said here today. He further said that the new policy should provide for a regional cargo hub in the north eastern region which would widen the scope of various region-specific trade and commerce activities.
“Arunachal with its potential in sectors such as food processing, floricul-ture and agriculture will stand to benefit consi-derably from such a hub. I propose establis-hment of a regional cargo hub, preferably in Guwahati which is the hub and gateway to all the north eastern states,” he said. He also requested the ministry to rationalise the cost of air turbine fuel.
“The present rate of tax on Air Turbine Fuel (ATF) in the state is 20 per cent. The state government can review the rate in due course to attract airlines,” he said. Stating that there is a need to include a provision of employing people from the region in the civil aviation sector, Wangham said the policy should give adequate weightage to capacity building, training and assistance for manpower at all levels. “This will in the long term facilitate the manning of airports, remote helipads and Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) by technically trained professional people at the local level,” he said.
The minister also sug-gested that while revie-wing the ‘Route Dispersal Guide-lines’ for operating in regio-nal connectivity, provision for special incentives were allowed for operators for the first few years of starting, the communiqué said.
Further, for a hilly state like Arunachal, air connectivity was also required for specific needs of the Army, paramilitary forces and construction agencies like BRO, he said. He said, due to non-functional airports in forward areas,civil Air Navigation Service was not available except in the nearest operational civil airports at Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Tezpur and Lilabari.
“It is essential that a policy is adopted to set up a few Civil Air Traffic Centers in coordination with the Army in such remote locations so as to cover all the remote areas within range irrespe-ctive of having airport, since a safe flying environment is to be ensured by the ministry,” he said. “The policy may envisage setting up of modern Air Navigation Systems/ATC installations in select locations with the help of service providers empanelled with the ministry. A preliminary study of the same may be undertaken for subsequent inclusion of recommen-dations as part of the policy framework,” he said.
A provision for introducing Air Ambulance Services might also be consi-dered for this purpose, he said. Wangham also deman-ded inclusion of the Green-field Airport at Itanagar in the union budget to increase frequency of commercial flights to the Leelabari airport in Assam’s North Lakhimpur district. (PTI)
