Applications for the LAMP Fellowship 2025-26 will open on December 1, 2024. Sign up here to be notified. Last date for submitting the applications is December 21, 2024.
The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (Amendment) Bill, 2021 was passed by Parliament on August 4, 2021. It amends the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India Act, 2008. This Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha during the budget session this year in March 2021. Subsequently, it was referred to the Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism, and Culture, which submitted its report on July 22, 2021.
Typically, cities have one civilian airport which provides all aeronautical services in that area. These services include air traffic management, landing and parking of aircraft, and ground handling services. This makes airports natural monopolies in the area. To ensure that private airport operators do not misuse their monopoly, the need for an independent tariff regulator in the airport sector was felt. Hence, the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) was established as an independent body under the 2008 Act to regulate tariffs and other charges (development fee and passenger service fee) for aeronautical services at major airports.
For the remaining airports, these tariffs are determined by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), which is a body under the Ministry of Civil Aviation. In addition, AAI leases out airports under the public-private partnership (PPP) model for operation, management, and development. Before AERA was set up, AAI determined and fixed the aeronautical charges for all airports. It also prescribed performance standards for all airports and monitored them. Various committees had noted that AAI performed the role of airport operator as well as the regulator, which resulted in a conflict of interest.
The 2008 Act designates an airport as a major airport if it has an annual passenger traffic of at least 35 lakh. The central government may also designate any airport as a major airport through a notification. The Bill adds that the central government may group airports and notify the group as a major airport. Thus, when a small airport will be clubbed in a group and the group is notified as a major airport, its tariff will be determined by AERA instead of AAI. Note that AERA will not determine the tariff if such tariff or tariff structures or the amount of development fees has been incorporated in the bidding document, which is the basis for the award of operatorship of that airport.
The amendments under the Bill raise some concerns regarding the grouping of airports and the capacity of the regulator.
As of 2020, there are 125 operational airports in India (includes international airports, customs airports, and civil enclaves). The number of airports under the purview of AERA increased from 11 in 2007 to 24 in 2019. For the remaining airports, tariffs are still determined by AAI. In the last five years (2014 to 2019), air passenger traffic increased from 11.3 crore to 34.9 crore (which is an annual growth rate of 10%). Till 2030-31, air traffic in the country is expected to continue growing at an average annual rate of 10-11%.
Before 2019, an airport with annual passenger traffic of at least 15 lakh was considered a major airport. In 2019, the AERA Act was amended to increase this threshold to 35 lakh. The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the 2019 Bill stated that the exponential growth of the aviation sector has put tremendous pressure on AERA, while its resources are limited. Therefore, if too many airports come under the purview of AERA, it will not be able to perform its functions efficiently. Consequently, in 2019, the number of airports under the purview of AERA was reduced. Now, with the passage of the 2021 Bill, AERA will have to again regulate tariffs at more airports as and when notified by the central government. Thus, the capacity of AERA may be needed to be enhanced for extending its scope to other airports.
Table 1: List of major airports in India (as of June 2019)
|
Ahmedabad |
Delhi |
Mumbai |
|
Amritsar |
Goa |
Patna |
|
Bengaluru |
Guwahati |
Pune |
|
Bhubaneswar |
Hyderabad |
Raipur |
|
Calicut |
Jaipur |
Thiruvananthapuram |
|
Chandigarh |
Kolkata |
Tiruchirappalli |
|
Chennai |
Lucknow |
Varanasi |
|
Cochin |
Mangalore |
Kannur |
Source: AERA website as accessed on August 2, 2021; PRS.
Latest in the string of litigations filed after the enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act), the Delhi High Court ruled that the Act shall not apply to nursery admissions in unaided private schools for the unreserved category of students. The decision, given on February 19, was in response to writ petitions filed by Social Jurist, a civil rights group and the Delhi Commission for the Protection of Child Rights. It contended that the guidelines of the Ministry of Human Resource Development related to schools’ selection procedure should also be applicable to pre-primary and pre-school classes. The right to education is applicable to children between the age of 6 and 14 years. The RTE Act states that schools have to reserve certain proportion of their seats for disadvantaged groups. It adds that where the school admits children at pre-primary level, the reservation for children of weaker sections shall apply. However, it does not mention whether other RTE norms are applicable to pre-schools. It only states that the appropriate government may make necessary arrangements for providing pre-school education to children between the age of 3 and 6 years. Guidelines of the Ministry with regard to selection procedure of students:
The two issues that the court considered were: (a) whether RTE applies to pre-schools including nursery schools and for education of children below six years of age; (b) whether RTE applies to the admission of children in pre-schools in respect of the unreserved seats (25% of seats are reserved for children belonging to disadvantaged groups). According to the verdict, the guidelines issued by the government do not apply to the unreserved category of students i.e. 75% of the admission made in pre-schools in private unaided schools. This implies that private unaided schools may formulate their own policies regarding admission in pre-schools for the unreserved category of students. However, they apply to the reserved category of students i.e. 25% of the admission s made in these schools for disadvantaged groups. The court has however stated that in its view this is the right time for the government to consider the applicability of RTE Act to the nursery classes too. In most schools, students are admitted from nursery and they continue in the same school thereafter. Therefore, the RTE Act’s prohibition of screening at the time of selection is rendered meaningless if it is not applicable at the nursery level.
