There will be no landing charges under the new policy, Jyotiraditya Scindia said (File)
Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia today announced a new helicopter policy under which dedicated hubs and corridors will be established and landing charges and parking deposits will be abolished to boost commercial operations.
"Today, I want to announce a new helicopter policy for the whole country. We have ten steps that are going to be part of this policy," Mr Scindia said during his speech at the 3rd Helicopter Summit organised by industry body FICCI in Dehradun.
Under the new policy, the government will put together a dedicated helicopter-acceleration cell in the Civil Aviation Ministry to look at issues faced by the industry, the minister mentioned.
"It is going to be a resource that you can use to facilitate your growth," he added.
The minister said that according to the new policy, there will be no landing charges or parking deposits for heliports and helicopter companies from now.
Officers of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Air Traffic Control (ATC) will engage with the stakeholders of the helicopter industry so that adequate training is given to all individuals, the minister noted.
Under the new policy, an advisory group has been set up in the Civil Aviation Ministry to discuss all pain points of the industry, he mentioned.
Heli-Disha, a booklet released today in Dehradun, will be given to every District Collector of the country, he said.
The booklet has all regulations and issues relating to helicopter size, weight, and operations among other things and it will be distributed so that awareness is created in the district administrations across the country, he added.
As per the new policy, a centralised Heli-Seva portal will be upgraded so that all permissions for a helicopter flight can be granted online, the minister mentioned.
He said the government is going to make four Heli-hubs to start with - one in Mumbai's Juhu, second in Guwahati, third in Delhi and fourth at the HAL airport in Bengaluru.
The minister said 10 cities and 82 routes have been identified to develop helicopter corridors.
"As a beginning, we are going to start with three dedicated corridors for helicopters - Juhu-Pune-Juhu, Mahalakshmi race course-Pune-Mahalakshmi race course and Gandhinagar-Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar," Mr Scindia noted.
He said the government has chosen three expressways - Delhi-Mumbai expressway, Ambala-Kotputli expressway and Amritsar-Bhatinda-Jamnagar expressway - along which the heliports will be set up for immediate evacuation of accident victims.
In the health sector, it is said that the first seven minutes are the golden minutes when victims of a road accident must be evacuated, he added.