The Union Budget pushed for promotion of drones through startups and skilling at Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs).”Startups will be promoted to facilitate ‘Drone Shakti’ through varied applications and for Drone-As-A-Service (DrAAS),” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said .
Courses for skilling will also be started in selected ITIs across all States.Drones will also be promoted for crop assessment, digitisation of land records, spraying of insecticides and nutrients.Barring the mention about drones, there were no new schemes or initiatives announced for the aviation sector. With Air India now privatised and handed over to Tata Sons, the budgetary allocation for the Ministry of Civil Aviation was slashed to more than half of the current fiscal. It has been allocated ₹4,574 crore for the next fiscal.
The special purpose vehicle (AI Assets Holding Limited), set up by the government in 2019 to clean-up Air India’s balance sheet to attract private investors and houses non-core assets of Air India and its liabilities, has been allocated ₹9,259 crore. “The provision is made for repayment of past government guaranteed borrowings, sale and lease back rentals and past dues and liabilities of AI Ltd.”
The FM said ₹51,971 crore for Air India debts was part of its revised estimate of capital expenditure of ₹6.03 lakh crore for last fiscal. This was for the purpose of “settlement of outstanding guaranteed liabilities of Air India and its other sundry commitments”.
Budget carrier IndiGo’s CEO Ronojoy Dutta rued that expectations of “tax concession to aviation industry in the forms of cut in aviation turbine fuel excise duty and allocation of concessional finance to airlines to help us come of the pandemic” were not met.The Ministry of Tourism received 18.42% higher allocation at ₹2,400.00 crore. A major portion of the outlay — ₹1,644 crore — has been earmarked for development of infrastructure for tourism development while ₹421.50 crore is set aside for promotion and publicity activities.
A new Loan Guarantee Scheme for COVID–affected Tourism Service Sector (LGSCATSS) has been started during the current financial year with an allocation of ₹62.5 crore for five years. It provides guarantee free loan up to ₹10 lakh each for government approved travel and tourism stakeholders such as tour operators and travel agents and up to ₹1 lakh to regional level tourist guides approved by the government.
