Indian aviation to take off: ‘Rs 98,000 crore investment in airports till 2026; Jet fuel may eventually be under GST’
NEW DELHI: India will witness an investment of Rs 98,000 crore by private airport operators and the state-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) over the next four years that will take the number of operational airports from 141 current to over 200 by 2025-26.
Two new airlines, Akasa and Jet-II, should start flying maximum by next March.
And to make India’s perennially loss-making airlines — that have been deal another deadly blow by the pandemic, — efforts are on to bring aviation turbine fuel (ATF) under GST eventually. Till that happens, 12 remaining states are being persuaded to lower their VAT rates on jet fuel from the prohibitive range of 20-30% to 1-4% like 13 states and UTs have done in recent months.
