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Indore, Feb 5: Air travel in the country is cheaper today than travel by auto-rickshaws on per kilometre basis, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said. “In today’s India, the fares of airplanes are lower than that of auto-rickshaws. Some people will say that I’m talking nonsense, but this is true,” Sinha asserted.
Speaking at the 27th International Management Conference of the Indore Management Association (IMA), Sinha explained the mathematics behind his claim and said, “These days, passengers spend only Rs 5 per kilometre on air travel from Indore to Delhi. But if you take an autorickshaw in this city, then you need to spend a relatively higher price of Rs 8 to 10 per kilometre.”
The minister claimed that more people were opting for air travel because the country had the cheapest fares in the world.
Sinha said that four years ago the number of people travelling by air was 11 crore and was likely to reach 20 crore by the end of the current fiscal. He added that the government wanted to increase the number of people using air travel by five times to 100 crore in the coming years.
Pitching for the promotion of innovation in entrepreneurship to provide affordable services to the common man, he said that it will also help the country overtake large economies such as the United States and China.
He also took a dig at those who criticised the recent statement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who in a television interview claimed that people earning Rs 200 a day selling pakodas can be considered employed.
The minister called for the use of electric vehicles in the country and said that if entrepreneurs took the lead, then the country would have passenger drones, helicopter taxis and air-rickshaws powered by electricity, leading to freedom from traffic jams.
(With PTI inputs)
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