CAA Bill proposes Rs 5 per ticket charge

The government is planning to introduce a surcharge of Rs 5 per flight ticket to fund the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) — the proposed aviation regulator that will replace the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

This proposal is a part of the CAA Bill that has been sent for various ministries for inter-ministerial consultations and the government plans to table it in the next session of Parliament.

"We estimate that the new regulator will have annual earnings of around Rs 140 crore, which will be enough for making them financially independent. A major part of the earnings will come from fee charged for giving out licences. A substantial sum will also come from charging from passengers," said a senior ministry official.

The earlier plan was to charge Rs 14 per ticket to fund the proposed regulator.

The official further explained that the 1 per cent of the revenues earned by the air navigation services, currently done by Airports Authority of India, will also be shared by the new authority.

"Fee for licensing air traffic control services at the airports are quite low and have not been increased since 2006. We have proposed that it should be increased helping the authority in earning more revenues," the official said.

The authority will also have the autonomy to hire its employees and decide the emoluments of its employees. Currently, appointments at the DGCA are approved by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), which is a time-consuming process.

The DGCA had identified around 400 vacancies to be filled in the current setup around two years ago but will be able to fill only 180 of them due to the time taking procedure of recruitment by the service commission.

A DGCA official explained that there are a lot of limitations in filling vacancies in the aviation regulator.

... contd.

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