Mumbai, Delhi airports to abolish development fee

October 17, 2012

mumbai_airport

New Delhi, October 17: In a marginal relief to air passengers, the airport development fee (ADF) will be withdrawn at the Delhi and Mumbai airports from January 1, 2013.

Now the Delhi airport is charging Rs 200 per domestic passenger and Rs 1,300 per international passenger, while in Mumbai the fee is Rs 100 and Rs 600 respectively.

The move comes close on the heels of the Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh asking the Airports Authority of India (AAI) not to levy ADF in Chennai and Kolkata airports. The two airports are operated by the AAI unlike those in Delhi and Mumbai which are run by private companies.

The move comes following a direction from the minister to AAI to infuse more equity in Mumbai International Airport Ltd. (MIAL) and Delhi International Airport Ltd. (DIAL) with the objective of abolishing ADF in the airports.

The minister has asked the AAI to submit its proposals to Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) which will take a final decision on the issue.

An official release said on Tuesday that the expected financing gap in case of MIAL will be about Rs 4,200 crore, while in case of DIAL it will be roughly Rs 1,175 crore if the ADF is abolished with effect from January 1.

An official release said: “Emphasising on the objective of the Government to make air travel affordable and to ensure passengers are not subjected to any extra burden, the minister has asked the AAI to take on priority the equity infusion with the purpose of abolition of ADF. If the present funding gaps in case of MIAL and DIAL are met in terms of equity infusion and proportionate raising of loans by the airport promoters including AAI, the ADF will stand abolished.”

The issue had figured in the courts too. The Supreme Court on October 12 reverted the matter to AERA to decide on the legality of the issue. The court had refused an interim stay on the collection of fees. However, it had remarked that the common man should not be asked “to pay for executive lounges.”

The court was hearing two petitions, one filed by NGO Consumer Online Foundation, which challenged the levy of fees and another by Federation of Indian Airlines, which wanted to enhance the amount.


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News Network
March 28,2020

New Delhi, Mar 28: The total number of coronavirus positive cases in the country has risen to 918 that include foreign nationals, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday.

The ministry said: "The total positive cases of coronavirus are 918. The active COVID-19 cases are 819. Cured and discharged are 79. While 19 deaths have occurred so far. One person with COVID-19 migrated. As many as 15,24,266 passengers were screened at airports."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced a 21-day lockdown in the entire country to deal with the spread of coronavirus, saying that "social distancing" is the only option to deal with the disease, which spreads rapidly.

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News Network
July 2,2020

New Delhi, Jul 2: India's COVID-19 tally breached the 6 lakh cases mark with 19,148 new coronavirus cases being reported in the last 24 hours, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday.

The total cases now stand at 6,04,641 of which there are 2,26,947 active cases while 3,59,860 patients have been cured/discharged/migrated.

434 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours taking the number of COVID-19 deaths in the country to 17,834.

Maharashtra, the worst-hit state, has a total of 1,80,298 cases including 8,053 fatalities. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu has 94,049 cases inclusive of 1,264 deaths.

Delhi has 89,802 coronavirus cases including 2,803 deaths.

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May 6,2020

May 6:The Congress on Wednesday said it is "economically anti-national" to fleece Indians of Rs 1.4 lakh crore by raising taxes on petrol and diesel, and urged the Centre to share 75 per cent of this revenue with states so that people are not burdened.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said when the entire country is fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and its poor, including migrants, shopkeepers and small businessmen, were virtually penniless, the government of India was "fleecing" 130 crore Indians by insurmountably raising prices of petrol and diesel.

"To fleece people of India in this fashion is economically anti-national," he told reporters at a press conference through video conferencing.

Surjewala alleged that the manner in which "illegally and forcibly" this recovery is being made is "inhumane, cruel and insensitive".

"The government should transfer 75 per cent of this money so collected through raise in taxes to states. This will ensure there is no further burden on people of India, by way of more taxes on petroleum products by states," he said.

He said the issue was discussed at a meeting of the chief ministers of Congress-ruled states with party president Sonia Gandhi, where everyone besides former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi expressed deep concerns.

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