The Ministry of Civil Aviation(MoCA) has organised the Conference of the Secretaries of Civil Aviation of all the states and union territories. The inaugural session was chaired by Shri Rajiv Bansal, secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Govt of India, today in Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi.
The conference began with the opening remarks of the Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation and was followed by presentations on various initiatives and programmes of the Ministry of Civil Aviation (by senior officials of the Ministry), a presentation by DGCA, a presentation by BCAS, Interaction with States/UTs on UDAN, Krishi Udan, Aviation Security, Developments of Airports, Greenfield Airports, Heliports, Heli Sewa, Water Aerodromes, etc., FTO/IGRUA/RGNAU presentations, Helicopter/HEMS presentations, MRO/Air Cargo presentations, and Drone presentations.
In his opening remarks, Rajiv Bansal said there has been a lot of progress in the last year. Domestic air traffic is almost at the pre-Covid level; multiple new airports have been inaugurated; new routes have been launched; and policy steps to promote drones, helicopter medical emergency services, and fractional ownership have been initiated. The Secretary requested states to reduce VAT on ATF and appreciated those states that have already done it.
Subjects of infrastructure support such as the extent of land requirement for different types of airports, pending cases of handing over of land, taxation-related issues such as VAT, tax incentives for promoting FTO, MRO, etc., Civil Aviation Policies of States/UTs such as articulating the States’/UTs’ Civil Aviation Policies and its components, sharing the best practices of States like UP, Gujarat, Karnataka, Odisha, NER, etc., and promotion of last mile connectivity were discussed during the conference.
At the event, Usha Padhee, Additional Secretary, MoCA; Rubina Ali, Joint Secretary, MoCA; Arun Kumar, Director General, DGCA; Zulfikar Hasan, DG, BCAS, Secretaries/Officers in Charge of Civil Aviation of the states and union territory; and other stakeholders from MoCA and states were present at the event.
