Tharoor attacks Kerala airport user’s fee

Thiruvananthapuram: Shashi Tharoor, the former junior foreign minister and the current MP for the Kerala state capital, has attacked the decision to impose a user development fee (UDF) at a new international airport terminal, to be opened here later this month.
The Trivandrum International Airport (TIA) is the sixth airport in India to levy a user charge to bridge a capital deficit after Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Delhi and Mumbai airports.
“They say the fee is being imposed on the users because of the cost overrun. But this is not a private airport,” Tharoor told reporters after visiting the state-of-the-art terminal on Tuesday.
The airport terminal was to be completed at a cost of 2.5 billion rupees a year back as per the original schedule.
But its commissioning was delayed by a labor dispute, scarcity of construction sand and a delay in providing road connectivity. The cost of the project then escalated by 17.5 percent to 2.9 billion rupees.
The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA), India’s airport regulator, last week approved the UDF of 775 rupees on international passengers departing from the state-owned airport for a period of 10 years.
11/05/10 Ashraf Padanna/Arab News

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Categories: Airports May 2010, Foreign May 2010