New Delhi: The Civil Aviation Ministry has drawn up a plan to offer all domestic airlines a subsidy so that they connect tier III and smaller towns and bring them on the aviation map.
This novel idea, which will put some amount of financial burden on the state governments as well as air passengers who fly on metro routes, will mean at least 40 smaller towns which currently have no air connectivity could get connected by air with their respective state capitals.
The cost? The ministry is readying a proposal to offer as much as Rs 350-400 crore subsidy in all to this project and airlines will have to bid for subsidy on each route. The subsidy would be initially available for three years.
Among these 40 towns which could soon join the aviation map are Meerut, Jhansi, Bareilly, Hubli, Belgam, Shimoga, Mysore, Rajamundri, Bhavnagar and Kutch. All of them are towns which have dense population and enough demand but whose residents at present need to travel to respective state capitals of Lucknow, Gandhinagar (or Ahmedabad) and Bangalore to be able to take a domestic flight.
13/02/13 Sindhu Bhattacharya/First Post.com
