Civil Aviation Policy to boost India's Logistics sector

Regional airports, critical to the country’s aviation sector, have been facing myriad hurdles at the state level. However, this is likely to change as new aviation policy to provide an impetus to air travel within the country. Providing his insight, secretary of civil aviation ministry RN Choubey stated that the proposed civil aviation policy would scale up India's global ranking from the current 9th to 3rd in terms of air passengers over the next five years. The secretary, who was addressing delegates from the aviation sector in the backdrop of 5th edition of India Aviation-2016 to be in Hyderabad from March 16- 20 next year, said India had an edge over other advanced countries and urged industries to choose India as their favourite destination for investment. The policy would give a boost for the development and operations of 400 airports and airstrips across the country. Two hundred new destinations would be added to regional operations. The secretary also highlighted that MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul sector) would also be prioritised in the policy. Choubey said suggestions from various stakeholders and industrial bodies would be considered while framing the policy. Addressing the gathering, chief secretary of the Karnataka government, Kaushik Mukherjee, said focusing on leisure travel by connecting new destinations was crucial for the aviation sector as business travel is turning bleak because of increasing teleconferences with the help of high-speed bandwidths.