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Airlines shun Raja Sansi airport
'coz landing charges too high
WSN Network
Chandigarh:
After it became clear that a number of Airlines were ready to leave
out Amritsar and shut shop, some MPs, Ministers and MLAs from Majha
have called upon CM Parkash Singh Badal asking him to take up the
issue with PM and the Union Civil Aviation and Commerce ministers to
ensure that flights to Rajasansi airport at Amritsar were not
discontinued.
Major row seems
to be about the landing charges for flights in
Amritsar which
are heavy and should be lower than Delhi airport. The basic purpose
of introducing international flights from
Amritsar
was to decongest Delhi airport as 29 per cent international air
traffic at Delhi was from Punjab.
The Union Civil
Aviation Ministry was charging Rs 1.54 lakh as landing charges for
every flight in
Amritsar from
Singapore Airlines as compared to Rs 75,000 at
Delhi
airport. Jet Airways, they said, was shelling out Rs 94,000 as
compared to Rs 69,000 in Delhi.
The nearly
double charges in
Amritsar were
making flights from Rajasansi unviable for the airlines. The
discontinuation of flights from Amritsar would hurt business,
besides causing inconvenience to pilgrims coming to Harmandar Sahib
and Vaishno Devi.
With the issue
cropping up, there is a race to claim credit also for raising it.
Just as the Majha leaders of Akali Dal made a show of meeting Badal
(without explaining why only Majha is bothered), former CM Capt
Amarinder Singh also plans to lead a delegation of Punjab leaders to
PM and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
BJP's loudmouth
MP Navjot Singh Sidhu plans a protest outside the Rajasansi airport
terminal on Wednesday while MP MS Gill of the Congress has issued
statement in newspapers saying he will bring up the matter before
the PM in the Cabinet.
The Chief
Minister has assured that he would take up these issues for an early
solution. Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that the Rs 140-crore
expansion work at the airport was to be completed by October 31, but
till date not even 40 per cent work had been completed.
5 November
2008
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