Centre unhappy over NE civil aviation scene

New Delhi: In the face of serious misgivings over the poor air service in the North-East and blatant flouting of the Route Dispersal Guide (RDG) by the private air operators, the Centre has finally swung into action opting for a major policy shift. A high-level meeting presided over by Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister TKA Nair and attended by senior officials of the concerned central ministries including Union Home Secretary G K Pillai recently took stock of the prevalent civil aviation scenario and was quite unhappy with the state of affairs, sources said.
The initiative by the PMO came in response to a complaint by Ministry DoNER over poor air connectivity in the North-east and flouting of civilaviation norms by private air operators. The Ministry was equally critical of the services provided by the state carrier Indian Airlines pointing to the below average performance of the regionalair service, it is operating in the North Eastern States.
Sources said the meeting also joined by Secretary DoNER, Civil Aviation amongst others took several vital decisions. The move to select a regional operator has been abandoned for good.
The Central Government is doing some rethinking on the vexed problem dogging the civil sector in the region. With no takers from the private air operators to run the regionalair service, government is mulling introduction of non-schedule operator (NSO) in place of schedule operator, said an official.
29/01/10 Kalyan Barooah/Assam Tribune

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Jan 2010