New Delhi, June 18 (KNN) Centre’s plan to link regional airports would not only directly benefit the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) but would also encourage large players to travel to remote locations to procure materials from them.

The Union cabinet on Wednesday approved a new civil aviation policy that aims to promote flights to smaller cities as well as to overseas destinations.

Through the policy, the Centre aims to convert unutilized airstrips into no-frills airports. It has also proposed a cap of Rs 2,500 for one-hour flights connecting unserved airports.

At present, out of 125 airports and airstrips in the country, as many as 78 are connected by commercial flights. If the Centre manages to execute the scheme with the cooperation of States, many destinations, such as Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Bareilly and Panna, could see flights operate from their airstrips.

Reacting to this, Ajay Sahai, Director General, FIEO, told KNN, “Two days back Government has announced a plan for regional connectivity where they said that they are capping the tariff of freight also that for a flight less than one hour nobody can charge more than Rs. 2500.”

He said that the idea is to increase the regional connectivity and once the regional connectivity will start, naturally the many of the airports which are not being used at the moment then they will be started. If the domestic travel increases, on the one hand it will increase the domestic tourism and since the regional areas would be better connected even the foreign tourist will be encourage to go to some of the places which they were not able to go due to not connected through air route.

“SMEs can be boosted because the large companies and buyers from the large companies who were not going to these place because connectivity was an issue but now since they will be connected, they would visit those facilities to understand what they are exactly producing. Whether they can procure part of production from them or whether they can procure components from them, these things will indirectly help the SMEs also operating in different areas,” Sahai added.

Manmohan Gaind, Vice President, Manesar Industries Welfare Association (MIWA) said the plan would partly solve the problem of land availability in bigger town.

“Today SMEs are having a problem of buying land near the big cities or travel by car to their destinations. If they have to buy cheaper lands for development of industries, in case you have remote areas connected then SMEs can open their shops there. They are having an easy access to that. So defiantly the connectivity will help.”

The MSME entrepreneur further said, “Anything that matters in whole thing is that sometimes for normal air fare they charge for the city like Chandigarh around Rs. 7000. Normally it should be Rs. 2000-25000. In case the remote areas would be connected with Rs 2000 or 25000, it would be very affordable for SMEs to venture out and open a factory. This will improve the industrialization.” (KNN Bureau)