Route Dispersal Policy reduces flight share of North-East

Route Dispersal Policy reduces flight share of North-East
A Correspondent

Agartala: The movement of flights in the sky of North-East India is gradually decreasing owing to a 2016 amendment of the Route Dispersal Policy by the Civil Aviation Ministry that reduced the mandatory operation of all private airlines in this region from ten percent to six percent only.

This six percent has further diluted as three more states Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and the Kochi of Kerala has been included in the list of backward states which was earlier only North-East and Jammu & Kashmir.

The Rout Dispersal Policy formulated in 1994 kept a mandatory provision of operating ten percent of total flight of every Air Lines in the relatively less profitable routes in North-East and the Jammu and Kashmir which was followed for so many years.

The Civil Aviation Ministry never issued any statement giving reasons for 2016 amendment of the Rout Dispersal Policy reducing the share of the backward states from 10 percent to six percent but there is a reason to believe that the ministry has succumbed to presser of the airline's lobby who since the beginning was lobbying for this. Despite having railway connection people of Tripura are heavily dependent on air services and one of the worst sufferers of the new amendment as a number of flights from Agartala has witnessed a drastic decrease in recent times. The SpiceJet has totally withdrawn their service from Agartala in August last while the Indigo has withdrawn two of its services, Agartala-Kolkata and Agartala-Bangaluru-Chennai in last four days.

Also Read: Tripura News

Top Headlines

No stories found.
Sentinel Assam
www.sentinelassam.com