NEW DELHI: The Yogi Adityanath government has decided to roll out the red carpet for airline operators, proposing a mega incentive policy for any airline that is ready to offer direct air connectivity between the state’s three prominent centres — Lucknow, Varanasi and Gorakhpur.At present, there is no flight from the state capital Lucknow to PM Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi or Gorakhpur — CM Adityanath’s constituency — or vice versa. Any person wishing to fly between these three destinations, which incidentally have fully functional airports, has to fly first to Delhi.Varanasi and Lucknow are even international airports. The first two incentives— SGST reimbursement and VAT waiver — will also apply to any airline offering a new direct flight from Lucknow, Varanasi or Gorakhpur to major airports in other states.Right now, there is a flight from Lucknow to Mumbai, Kolkata, Patna, Delhi, Dehradun, Bengaluru and Bhopal and from Varanasi to some of these centres. The new policy is proposing incentives of similar nature but for bigger duration to airlines ready to connect its unserved and under-served airstrips like Agra, Allahabad, Meerut, Jhansi, Kanpur, Faizabad, Bareilly and Aligarh, which may be included by the Centre in its Regional Connectivity Scheme. UP also proposes to waive off its SGST share and underwrite 50 per cent of vacant seats for three years on RCS connecting flights.

Source: Economic Times August 20, 2017 19:24 UTC