Indian Airlines to get Rs 35 cr as subsidy for N-E operation

Ashwini Phadnis

NEW DELHI, Dec. 17

IN an effort to promote air connectivity in the North-Eastern region, the Government has agreed to provide an annual subsidy of Rs 35 crore for the next five years to Indian Airlines (IA) for the flights it operates to the region.

Senior IA officials told Business Line that the airline has received an official letter from the Minister for North-Eastern Affairs, Mr Arun Shourie, confirming the Government decision to provide the subsidy.IA, like other domestic airlines, offers subsidised fares to the North-East, although its reach and connectivity are much more than the private carriers.

IA operates from Kolkata to all the 9 airports to which jet aircraft can operate, including Bagdogra, Guwahati, Tejpur, Jorhat, Dimapur, and Imphal. In addition, it connects Guwahati to Agartala and Imphal. Many of the services to the region are loss-making. Mr Sharad Yadav, former Civil Aviation Minister, had told the Lok Sabha that among IA's loss-making operations are the Kolkata-Guwahati, Kolkata-Aizwal-Imphal, Kolkata-Agartala, Kolkata-Silchar and Delhi-Guwahati sectors.

Justifying the Government subsidy, senior Government officials said that IA operates almost 17 per cent of the capacity deployed in Category I routes, compared to the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) requirements of only 10 per cent under the route dispersal guidelines.

Sources said that another reason for providing some relief to IA was that the private airlines were just about meeting the requirements laid down by DGCA for operations in the region. Meanwhile, in an effort to curtail losses incurred by the North-Eastern operations, IA has already begun the process of acquiring smaller ATR-42-500 aircraft.

The sources said that while the induction of the ATR aircraft had been delayed beyond the scheduled deadline of December 2001/January 2002, IA was confident of having the aircraft in its fleet by the summer of 2002.