Date:21/11/2007 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/11/21/stories/2007112152911000.htm

Back Ministry urged to ‘sympathetically consider’ tax sops on aviation fuel

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Nov 20 The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, has recommended to the Ministry of Finance that it should “sympathetically consider” and give “approval” to the proposal of the Ministry of Civil Aviation declaring Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) as a declared good attracting a maximum uniform sales tax of 4 per cent through out the country.

The committee has recommended that the Ministry of Finance discuss the matter with State Governments and persuade them to reduce the sales tax on ATF. At the moment the sales tax on ATF varies from 4 per cent to more than 30 per cent around the country. “The restructuring of the excise duty on ATF would have a positive impact on the development of the civil aviation sector of the nation,” the Committee has said.

The report was laid in Parliament on Tuesday.

The committee has also expressed dissatisfaction over the explanation given by the Ministry of Civil Aviation for the delay in modernisation of 35 non-metro airports.

The committee report states that the new target for completion of the development of the 35 non-metro airports has been pushed back to the end of the financial year 2009-10 as against December 2009 earlier.

Chennai, Kolkata airports

The committee has recommended that the modernisation of Chennai and Kolkata airports should be completed on a priority basis to ease traffic congestion at Delhi and Mumbai airports. “Chennai and Kolkata should be developed as international hubs to cater to the needs of the people in the eastern and southern part of the country,” the Committee has said.