Puducherry to be back on air map by January

Explaining the details to media about the MoU signed by the territorial administration with the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Airport Authority in New Delhi recently, the Chief Minister said that talks had been held with the Jet Airways, Spice Jet among others. AIR India may also come back, he added. 

He said small flights from Puducherry to Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Tirupati, Kochi and Coimbatore will be operated. 

The fare was fixed at Rs 2500 per passenger. It was initially decided that the balance of the ticket fare would be borne by the Civil Aviation Ministry and Puducherry government with 80 percent of the balance would be provided by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and 20 percent would be paid by the Puducherry government. However, since the Puducherry is a Union Territory with legislature, the government asked the centre that it should bear the entire amount which was accepted by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. 

The Chief Minister said the Puducherry government had paid Rs 3.81 crore as subsidy to the flight operators last year and added that such a situation will not arise this time since, the centre would fully provide the balance amount of the fare to the flight operators. 

He said that he had taken part in the GST council meeting in which it was decided that state commercial tax department would assess and collect the tax from those who pay a sale tax up to Rs 67 lakh and from those who pay an excise duty up to Rs 4 lakh. 

As far as service tax payers, they would be under the direct supervision of the Central government till training would be provided to the Puducherry officials.