The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India Bill, also termed AERA Bill 2019 was passed on Friday in Parliament. The Bill seeks to increase the threshold of major airport’s passenger traffic to over 35 lakh. This Bill was one of the prominent Bills that the government wanted to pass in the maiden session of 17th Lok Sabha.
It seeks to repeal the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India Act, 2008. While Rajya Sabha had passed the bill earlier only, Lok Sabha passed it on Friday through voice vote.
In existing practices, Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India oversees those major airports which have the capacity to handle one-and-a-half-million passengers a year. It is this authority only which decides tariff for aeronautical services at major airports. For those airports not covered under its purview, their tariffs are determined by Airport Authority of India, a department under Civil Aviation Ministry.
Now with the amended AERA Bill, the definition of major airports will be revamped to include any aerodrome which can handle the capacity of three-and-a-half-million passengers annually.
According to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, now a total of 16 major airports will come under the purview of Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India. Bill also includes provisions that AERA will not determine tariff structures in certain cases where tariff amounts are a part of bid documents.
The Civil Aviation Minister explained that the objective of the Bill is to cope up with the rising pressure on the aviation sector, which is under heavy pressure due to the exponential growth of the sector. He also stated the fact that though the penetration of Civil aviation sector is just 7 percent, it is growing at the rate of 17 percent, thus preceding the current rate of the aviation sector’s development. He also explained that the move to privatize Air India is already under the wraps and it will be done as early as possible.
Despite the late hour, the Airports Economic & Regulatory Authority of India (Amendment) Bill, 2019 (AERA) was passed in Lok Sabha after a lively, informative & interesting debate in the house.
I want to thank Hon'ble members for their valuable inputs & suggestions. pic.twitter.com/eyAkdzn4bL
— Hardeep Singh Puri (मोदी का परिवार) (@HardeepSPuri) August 2, 2019
The passage of Bill also saw many leaders demanding an increasing mode of air connectivity in their constituency. In this light, the Government’s UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) scheme has been a game-changer. Owing to its success, Union has also rolled out UDAN 2.0 to target Tier 2 and tier 3 cities.
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