Union Civil Aviation Minister P. Ashok Gajapati Raju on Thursday said bus stations were far better than the Gannavaram airport.
“This airport is more congested and passengers cannot even sit here. Some bus stations are far better but this is not even as good as (an average) bus station. It’s an apology of an airport,” he said while responding to a question during an interaction with media persons here. The Minister arrived at the airport directly from New Delhi to review the proposed expansion plans of the airport and to participate in a series of programmes.
Plans have been chalked out to develop the Gannavaram airport on par with the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in Shamshabad. Post-bifurcation, the importance of the airport has gone up and air traffic is also increasing gradually and sustainability levels are also high here.
“We want to adopt the same strategy implemented for developing the airport in Hyderabad when we were in government last,” he said, adding that officials from Airports Authority of India (AAI), GVK and State government gave their inputs. “We will look into them and finalise before fixing the targets,” he saidIn a bid to give a fillip to the aviation sector, the Andhra Pradesh government has reduced Value Added Tax on Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) to just one per cent from the existing 16 per cent, he said.
Plans chalked out to develop the Gannavaram airport on par with Shamshabad Airport, he says
