Airlines increase cancellation charges
The airline industry, on Wednesday, have issued circulars informing their respective ticket counters that in case of cancellation of tickets, the amount will be refunded through bank accounts. Soon after they received the circular, the counters were requesting bank account details of commuters buying tickets for travel in the next three days. The airline industry has been given an exemption of 72 hours for accepting the currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. In a ripple effect, all the private airliners have doubled the cancellation charges for domestic flights from Rs 2,250 to Rs 5,000. Expecting an increase in the purchase of air tickets by black-money hoarders, the airline industry has made it mandatory for people to submit a photocopy of PAN card or AADHAR card for cash payments above Rs 50,000. Warren Sapp Jersey
Air tickets bought using old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes to be ‘strictly non-refundable’
The great Indian ‘jugaad’ has failed this time. People were lining up at airport counters of airlines to buy tickets using their stack of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes+ . On Thursday evening, airlines said that the tickets being sold like this will be “strictly non-refundable and won’t be cancelled”. SpiceJet confirmed this move and Vistara tweeted about it. “We got instructions from the DGCA to do so. They, in turn, got their orders from the highest level of government (read PMO) as the relaxation was meant to ensure genuine travellers do not face hardships. This was not meant to be misused as a old-to-new note conversion trick,” said a senior airline official. The mad frenzy among people to get rid of their ‘unaccounted’ notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 has seen airlines witness a mad rush at airport counters from soon after PM Modi’s dramatic announcement on Tuesday night. Airline counters at airports were among the few places allowed to accept these high denomination currency till Friday-Saturday midnight. Rob Kelley Jersey
Green signal to new Lohegaon airport road
The defence ministry has approved the construction of another road leading to the Lohegaon airport, paving the path to ease congestion on the approach path to the terminal. The 400m road would pass through a private land. It would stretch towards the VIP Road in one direction and towards Vimannagar on the other, running parallel to the existing road through defence land. The road will originate from the Parking number-2 of the airport, said MP Anil Shirole, the chairman of the Pune Airport Advisory Committee. Serious discussions on constructing the new road were on for quite sometime. The office of the Union defence minister has now given a go-ahead to the construction of the road along the perimeter wall of the Indian Air Force (IAF). It has been decided that the IAF would give land not exceeding 20m in width from its existing boundary wall. The security wall would be constructed exactly at a distance of 20m from the wall. The new security wall would have to be constructed before the demolition of the existing boundary wall. The IAF has sought proper security measures during the construction of the road. Deion Sanders Jersey
AAI announces Rs. 17000 crore for development of existing airports
The Airports Authority of India on Tuesday announced a major expansion plan of Rs 17000 crore in next five years, for the development of existing airports in the country. AAI Chairman Guru Prasad Mahapatra, who paid a visit at the Bhubaneswar airport, said the development plan includes the expansion of terminals, runway and improvement in the radars of the air navigation system. During the briefing Mahapatra enlightened that round 200 to 300 crore would be spent by the AAI authority to expand the Bhubaneswar airport, under which new terminals would be built and the old ones would be repaired with new tools. The decision of expansion arrived after the aviation sector in India witnessed a growth of more than 20 percent. The Airports authority has plans to purchase new aircrafts under the process to increase the connectivity with other countries. C. J. Prosise Womens Jersey
Armed With A Winning Strategy, Jayant Sinha Vows To Make Air India Profitable Again
Jayant Sinha assumed charge as Minister of State for Civil Aviation in July this year, after a stint in the Finance Ministry. The former investment banker gained a reputation of being a quick learner there and he has demonstrated that again in his new job, having acquired a good grasp over the intricacies of India’s high-cost aviation sector. He has helped launch the ambitious regional connectivity scheme UDAN (which had been in the works for years) and now promises to revolutionise service standards in the aviation sector. In an exclusive chat with Swarajya’s Sindhu Bhattacharya, Sinha promises a return of loss-laden Air India to its former glory and a new definition of what we know as an “Indian” airline. His next pet project is Air Sewa, which is expected to change service standards in India’s aviation industry. Excerpts: Q. In the last six months, every airline was competing aggressively, especially on pricing so much so that yields were falling. But last-minute prices have shot through the roof in the last few days. A. It is important to understand how airline pricing is done. Like any other industry, setting prices is a very dynamic process. If you look in aggregate, prices have been declining for air travel and if you look at the revenue per average seat kilometre (RASK), which is something that airlines track very closely and you can see the data from the latest numbers that Indigo has posted, those are actually coming down. So airline prices in aggregate are declining. Q. What do you mean by aggregate pricing, for the common man? A. If you look at the number of kilometers flown and the amount of rupees collected, the rupees collected per km are actually going down. So in aggregate, the cost of flying is going down. Now that’s the overall story and now you have to look at the individual routes over time. Pavel Buchnevich Womens Jersey
State eyes global firms for highway works
In a bid to curb corruption, the Public Works Department (PWD) has decided to give contracts for redevelopment of 30,000-km-long state highways only to big or global companies. The new tender condition will be that the company should have a turnover of at least Rs 2,000 crore so that small contractors are automatically barred. The ambitious project will be executed in two years’ time, bringing state highways up-to-speed with international standards. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has even invited big companies like L&T, Shapoorji Pallonji and Reliance as also Malaysian and Korean companies on November 21 to disclose plans to redevelop 30,000-km roads in the state. “The idea is to curb corruption at lower levels while redeveloping roads. Local contractors have a link with local leaders which impacts work quality. The road conditions are very poor across the state. Hence, we have decided to adopt contract policy from national highways. National and international companies will not indulge in local-level corruption and will build roads matching global standards. The CM has given in-principle approval to changing norms for road construction, allowing us to involve companies with a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore. Also, such companies will have machinery, expertise and engineers required to construct roads,” an official from the PWD department told The Asian Age. Going further, the government has worked out a new financial model where it will pay 60 per cent of the amount in the first three years, and the remaining will be paid in parts for the next 12 to 15 years. “The companies will be allowed to quote their price with interest as the government is going to pay them for the next 12 to 15 years, the entire cost of the project. We don’t have much funding to reconstruct roads and hence, the model will help us pay the cost,” the official said. Every company will be allotted work on 100 km of road and government expects a cost of Rs 1.5 crore per km, he added. The project includes state highways, roads connecting tehsils with district headquarters and a few tourists’ places. “The government wants roads to be completed in two years’ time. Good road condition can have a huge impact on the public and this can also be used as election agenda. The CM has called a meeting with companies on November 21 where we will take suggestions from them,” the official said. Meanwhile, a contractor who has been in the business of road contracts for the past 10 years, expressing surprise over the government’s new policy, said that this would affect small contractors adversely. He also refused to accept that corruption could be rooted out completely with the decision. “The perception that small contractors are corrupt is not correct. This will affect our business. But we have not heard anything concrete from the government yet,” he said on condition of anonymity. Riley Reiff Jersey
Ban diesel vehicles in 4 states: NGT on Delhi pollution
Slamming the Centre and Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana governments over non compliance and inaction to tackle air pollution, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday proposed to expand the scope of diesel vehicle ban, which is enforced in Delhi, to the four states. The tribunal also directed the central and state governments to declare emergency if the particulate matter (p.m.) 2.5 and 10 reaches in excess of 500 and 300 micrograms respectively. During the emergency, the tribunal said the states must temporarily shutdown thermal power plants and close all construction activities in the affected areas. The tribunal also reached to the corporates and asked them to collect and dispose agricultural residues under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative. With regards to stubble burning which has been, reasoned by many, as the major cause of air pollution, the green court asked the central and state governments to constitute committees to tackle crop burning and find out the source of pollution. The concerned committees will then have to report to the NGT and update it about the steps being implemented. The Delhi government on Sunday unveiled a slew of steps, including closure of all schools for three days, to battle unprecedented smog levels that have drastically cut visibility and turned the national capital into a virtual gas chamber. Justin Williams Authentic Jersey
Govt’s target of 25,000 km of highway projects may not be met in FY17
Government may fall short of its target of awarding 25,000 km of highway projects in the current financial year as delays in project clearances impact growth in the sector. So far, a meagre 18% of the highway projects have been awarded during the current financial year as against the target of 25,000 km. “On an average project clearances takes about one and one-and-a-half year, this delays the award process, ” road minister Nitin Gadkari said at the Economic Editor’s Conference. Land acquisition, environment and forest clearance is required prior to award of a highway project. Road projects of 4,433 km have been awarded till October 2016 of which 3,591 km have been constructed. The construction target of roads for the current year is 15,000 km. Gadkari has announced Rs 2 lakh crore investment for constructing expressways in the poll-bound states of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. Of these, projects worth Rs 30,000 crore are already underway in UP. But officials said land acquisition cost may prove to be a real challenge because of the steep cost involved, Business Standard reported recently. Expressways, by definition, are greenfield projects and involve huge land acquisition cost. As much as Rs 10-12 crore per km of cost is incurred in the expansion of a highway from two-lane to four-lane. The number would be five to six times higher in a greenfield project like expressway. Estimates suggest land acquisitions costs constitute around 50 per cent of the total cost of the expressway project. On an average, an expressway is built at a width of 100-feet. The cost of land acquisition varies from state to state and can even differ at two locations in the same state, an official said. The Western Peripheral Expressway (Kundli-Manesar-Palwal) and the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (Kundli-Ghaziabad-Palwal) are among other projects delayed for over a decade. These are likely to be completed by December 2017. The projects would benefit Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, as they will open both the rural as well as the urban areas for developing commercial spaces and townships along the expressways, apart from generating revenue. The projects are also expected to improve air pollution levels in Delhi and decongest the national Capital. Another project is the New Delhi to Katra (Jammu & Kashmir) expressway, which would also reduce travel time to Amritsar by about two-and-a-half hours. The Delhi-Amritsar-Katra expressway would be executed on an alignment cutting across Jind in Haryana and connecting Amritsar via Barnala in Punjab. The project — that would come up at a cost of Rs 60,000 crore — would reduce the distance between Delhi and Katra by 110 km. The distance from Delhi to Katra via National Highway-1 is 729 km. In addition, the government has prepared a blueprint of expressways stretching across 18,000 km. But experts remain sceptical of the ambitious announcements made by the minister, mainly on account of land acquisition cost involved. At present, there are only a clutch of expressways in the country, including the Mumbai-Pune expressway, that was built at a cost of over Rs 1,600 crore and became fully operational in April 2002. In order to complete the proposed projects on time, the road construction pace has to be set at 30 km per day, as promised by Gadkari, after he took charge in May 2014. Johnny Unitas Jersey
Twenty Five lakh crore rupees investment in highways and shipping in 5 yrs: Nitin Gadkari
To overhaul infrastructure, government is lining up Rs 25 lakh crore for the highways and shipping sectors in 5 years, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Wednesday. “We are doing massive work in the infrastructure sector. There will be investment worth Rs 25 lakh crore in highways and shipping in 5 years,” Gadkari, who holds road transport, highways and shipping, said while addressing the Economic Editors Conference 2016. His estimate is the investment of Rs 25 lakh crore in the sector is bound to boost GDP by 3 per cent and this will also create at least 5 crore jobs. According to the minister, so far projects worth Rs 4 lakh crore have been awarded, including projects worth Rs 3.17 lakh crore in highways and Rs 80,000 crore in shipping. He backed up his claims saying the massive work has led to construction of 22 km of highways per day, whereas the ministry is striving to achieve 42 km a day target and is working hard in that direction. Highway construction target for 2016-17 is 15,000 km and “till October, we constructed 3,591 km”, he said. The minister said that the current BJP government so far has constructed 14,594 km of highways while it has awarded projects for construction of another 21,247 km. The government is in the process of finalising project reports of 12 expressways soon and work on the same will start. Two key projects, Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways will be completed in the next seven months, the minister said. “Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has asked us to complete both these projects to decongest Delhi within 400 days and accordingly, the work is going on and we are hopeful to complete these in the next seven months,” Gadkari added. The government remains “committed” to increasing the length of National Highways to 2 lakh km. The length of National Highways has already been increased to 1.65 lakh km, from the earlier 96,000 km. Also on the priority list of the government is improving the infrastructure in the North-East, and Rs 1 lakh crore investment has been pencilled in for the same. Asked about the delays in projects in Kerala, he pointed to land acquisition as a major hindrance but the situation has improved recently with a new government there. Turning to Tamil Nadu projects and the one involving elevated corridor of the Chennai Port, the minister said: “I may be a go-getter in India, but I am failing in exam in Tamil Nadu.” Gadkari said policy initiatives and other measures have resulted in unlocking Rs 3.8 lakh crore of stalled projects. He expressed happiness that bankers and and private players interest in the road sector has revived. He is clear that there is no question of scrapping toll fees and people need to pay for the same if they want to avail better services. The minister sees immense potential of waterways in the country, including cruise tourism, and the government is working to give a push in this direction. The government has already approved conversion of 111 rivers across the country into waterways. “Work on 20 inland waterway projects will start soon,” the minister added. Emphasis is on port rail connectivity projects and works worth Rs 22,000 crore are being undertaken through Port Rail Corporation. Indian Port Rail Corporation (IPRCL), which has been set up to take up last-mile rail connectivity for ports, have taken up 25 works across 9 major ports. Of this, 4 have already been awarded and 9 more are in the pipeline for the remaining part of 2016-17. Out of the final list of 27 rail connectivity projects identified under Sagarmala, 21 for 3,300 km worth Rs 28,000 crore are being taken up by the Ministry of Railways and 6 worth Rs 3,590 crore are to be taken up either in Non-Government Rail (NGR) or JV model through IPRCL. The ambitious Sagarmala project is under way, in which five coastal economic zones are being developed. The idea is to reduce logistics cost for exim and domestic trade with minimal infrastructure investment and Sagarmala aspires to reduce logistics costs leading to overall cost savings of Rs 35,000-40,000 crore per annum. As part of Sagarmala, more than 400 projects, at an estimated infrastructure investment of more than Rs 8 lakh crore, have been identified. Master plans have been finalised for the 12 major ports and based on the same, 142 port capacity expansion projects worth Rs 91,434 crore have been identified for implementation over the next 20 years. “Out of this, 30 projects worth Rs 11,612 crore have been proposed for implementation starting 2016-17,” he said. In addition, 6 new port locations have been identified and will be developed – Vadhavan, Enayam, Sagar Island, Paradip Outer Harbour, Sirkazhi, and Belekeri. Seventy-nine road connectivity projects have been identified under Sagarmala and will be taken up, including 18 projects under Bharatmala scheme. An Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) has also been formed to develop a strategy and implementation road map for coastal shipping of coal and other commodities and products, he said. Zack Kassian Womens Jersey
Govt to promote solar powered charkhas, rickshaws
The government is looking at promoting solar powered charkhas as well as rickshaws in the country and has invited views from stakeholders on design and costing of the products. “Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) is considering to promote ‘Solar Powered Charkhas’ and ‘Solar Rickshaw’ under off grid and decentralised solar programme. Suggestions are invited from the stakeholders on…Technical specifications,” a MNRE official said. The official further said that manufacturers and developers of solar powered charkhas and solar rickshaw have been requested to send their comments on the technical specifications with design by November 22. “Manufacturers of solar charkhas, who have developed the product/interested in developing an improved product may please send their comments,” the official said. It is possible, he said, to eliminate the hardship/ drudgery involved in the manual operation of charkha and increase the wage earning capacity. Since charkhas are being mainly operated in rural areas which don’t have assured electric supply, the use of solar energy could be thought of. The use of solar energy can usher in a new era of spinning, the official added. Since the charkha is a small machine, it is feasible to operate the charkha using solar energy. A commercially viable solar system for the operation of 8-10 spindles charkha has been developed by many institutions. The technology is now well proven. To revive the large numbers of charkhas going out of operation in villages, solar energy could be easily harnessed. Solar charkha kit attachment has been developed to operate the existing 8-10 spindle charkhas which are normally used for manual operation in practice. A motorised mechanism ensures an even power supply, which in turn ensures a better quality of yarn. The government has ambitious plans for deployment of 175 GW renewable power capacities by 2022, including 100 GW of solar and 60 GW of wind. Dominique Easley Authentic Jersey