Cabinet refers aviation policy to GoM

New Delhi: The Union cabinet has decided to refer the proposed aviation policy to a Group of Ministers (GoM) for wider consultations on several issues. These include a new set of norms that would allow private carriers to fly abroad.

The referral was made after the Cabinet felt that several proposals contained in the policy, called Vision-2020, needed to be further discussed, official sources said. The cabinet meeting was chaired by the prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh.

Some of the contentious issues include the proposal to separate Air Traffic Control (ATC) from the Airport Authority of India (AAI) to form a separate company, sources said. This clashes with a view amongst industry and political circles that separation of the ATC from the AAI would lead the latter to lose a substantial chunk of its revenues.

Sources said that the prime minister would soon constitute a GoM, which would take up these issues.