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Air traffic drops at Shamshabad

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: The State government has stated that the volume of air traffic at the new Shamshabad airport here has dropped on account of road connectivity problems and hike in price of aviation fuel.

Against 239 aircraft that used to land and take off daily from Begumpet airport, only 208 flights were operating a day from Shamshabad. Between the two airports, the passenger traffic also fell from 17,400 to 16,400 a day, Minister for Ports and Airports M. Venkataramana Rao informed the Assembly during question hour on Saturday.

Mr. Rao maintained that there was a marginal increase in international passenger traffic at Shamshabad, but the volume of domestic passengers was higher at Begumpet by 1,600.

The Minister turned down the demand by the Opposition and some Congress members for constituting a House Committee to go into collection of user development fee (UDF) from passengers by the airport developer M/s GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL) and also to examine the extent of land allotted to it.

Speaker K.R. Suresh Reddy rejected another demand by the Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) that the House adopt a resolution asking GMR to exempt Haj pilgrims from payment of the fee. He said rules of legislature did not permit resolutions against private parties.

Almost all parties, including the Congress, resented the collection of UDF at Shamshabad airport. Mr. E. Pratap Reddy (Congress) said the company should be allowed to sell the excess land in its possession to make good its operating losses instead of collecting user fee. He said the Karnataka Assembly had constituted a House Committee to go into similar problems at the new Bangalore airport. The issue subsided after the Minister promised to take up the issue of UDF with GHIAL and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) since the charges were levied as part of a bipartite agreement between them.

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