Hyderabad:
At the International Aviation Show in Hyderabad, the helicopters are missing. The reason: they are all busy ferrying politicians this election season. Bookings happened months in advance.
AJS Walia of Sikorsky says whatever choppers are commercially available in the country have all been booked by the political parties for use during the election period. ''But the numbers are still very small for a large country like India. We need more helicopters,'' he says.
Sameena Haque of Orbit Aviation says business really looks up for charter service companies during elections. "If we fly 30-40 hours a month during non-election days, it is 60-70 or even 100 hours per month during elections for any operator," she says.
Given that India is a vast country with all kinds of terrain, the demand for choppers goes up. But the supply has not been able to cope with the demand.
The number of helicopters in the country has actually gone down from 292 last year to 260 this year because of high operating costs and unfriendly regulatory environment.
G Asok Kumar, Joint Secretary, Civil Aviation, concedes. "We are taxing the private operators up to 27 per cent whereas others are charged about seven per cent. We want to reduce that differential and incentivise people to bring private helicopters,'' he says.
It costs anywhere between Rs 70,000-90,000 per hour for a single engine chopper. The civil aviation authority has said the VVIPs must fly twin engine choppers that cost between Rs 1.2 to 1.5 lakh rupees an hour.
Hopefully the Election Commission is keeping count of the number of hours being clocked by each candidate and party.