Congress leader KC Venugopal and Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia locked horns again on Twitter on Tuesday with the AICC general secretary demanding concrete action over rising airfares and the BJP leader hitting back by calling him an “armchair activist”.
Venugopal and Scindia have been sparring on Twitter since Sunday over the state of the aviation sector.
On Monday, the minister hit back at the Congress general secretary (organisation), saying he was “cherry-picking” facts to attack the BJP government while forgetting the “step-brotherly” treatment meted out to civil aviation during the UPA rule.
Tagging Scindia’s long Twitter post from Monday, Venugopal tweeted that this entire “flight price fiasco” is unravelling the “criminal extent” to which the Ministry of Civil Aviation “neglected” passenger welfare and the aviation sector.
“The more we dive deeper, the greater the mess we see. You have opened a Pandora’s box, @JM_Scindia ji,” he said.
Hitting back at Venugopal Scindia said, “Armchair activist, @kcvenugopalmp Ji displays eloquence only when he raises questions, but decides to not answer when questions are asked of him. Your turn to answer, sir. Be accountable and practice what you preach.” In his swipe at Scindia, Venugopal said that as per the ministry’s own affidavit in the Jet Airways insolvency case, airport slots are neither assets nor rights of the airline, but mere permissions granted on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis.
“In 2020, then MoS Civil Aviation @HardeepSPuri ji, in response to a Parliamentary Question, stated that Jet Airways slots were being reallocated on a temporary basis. In this case as well, if GoFirst is not using its slots, these must be allocated to other airlines on a temporary basis. Why is the govt treating the GoFirst crisis differently?” he said.
Venugopal also termed “laughable” Scindia’s assertion that the AERA (Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India) is an independent body.
Venugopal said the AERA is run by a sitting IAS officer and its other officers are appointed by the government, which also determine its budget.
Is it independent in the same way that the ED, CBI and IT Dept are independent, the Congress leader asked.
“You conveniently skipped the part where it was the Modi government itself which hiked the excise on ATF (Aviation Turbine Fuel) from 8 per cent to 14 per cent, before scaling it back to 11 per cent. When ATF constitutes nearly half the cost of operating an aircraft, these seemingly small changes make a huge impact,” Venugopal said in his tweet on Tuesday, hitting out at Scindia.
“You cannot hide behind advisories which have no legal bearing and quote random figures that fly in the face of exorbitant prices faced by consumers on a daily basis. Unless you take concrete action, and not create paper tigers, this crisis will not be solved,” the Congress general secretary said.
Slamming Scindia for his criticism of the UPA government’s handling of the aviation sector, Venugopal said that as far as the growth of the aviation sector under the UPA is concerned, the number of Indians travelling by flights grew from 30.3 million on 2003-04 to 91.8 million in 2010-11.
He said there was a 300 per cent increase, facilitated by historically high levels of economic growth and the creation of the Indian middle class.
“It was during the UPA era that low cost travel boomed, with the rise of Indigo, Spice Jet and Go Air (then a flourishing venture), along with the expansion of existing airlines, which ensured the Indian middle class took flights for the first time,” Venugopal said.
“However, the Modi government’s hollow PR is for all to see: As per the Ministry’s own admission to the Parliamentary Standing Committee in Feb 2022, only 22 out of 94 UDAN routes are in operation. The Shivamogga airport’s inauguration alone cost 21 crore, because PM Modi was cutting the ribbon himself,” he said.
The death of Jet Airways, the ongoing struggles of SpiceJet for many years, and now this GoFirst saga are all testament to the complete mismanagement of the aviation sector by the Modi regime, he alleged.
In his reply tagging Venugopal’s tweet, Scindia posed questions to the Congress leader, asking why was the North Eastern Region not a priority for the UPA Govt.
Not a single airport existed in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim till 2018, he said.
“Today, NER has 17 airports, up from 9 airports, and are connected under the UDAN scheme,” he pointed out.
“Why did 3 airlines (Kingfisher, Air Deccan & Paramount Airways) go bust during the UPA-rule? Today, apart from Akasa, and Fly91 that is also gearing up to fly by this winter, 4 regional airlines have taken birth under the UDAN scheme (STAR AIR, INDIAONE AIR, FLYBIG and AIR TAXI),” the Civil Aviation Minister said.
He alleged Air India was driven to the ground by the UPA government due to corruption and bad decision-making.
“Daily losses amounted to Rs 20 crore; annually- Rs 7200 crore. Why was taxpayers’ money squandered away for fulfilling the UPA government’s needs?” Scindia said.
Venugopal in a tweet Sunday had said hard facts and everyday suffering of the middle class cannot be wished away by distorting figures and misrepresenting the actual facts on the ground.
Hitting back at Venugopal, Scindia on Monday had said, “@kcvenugopalmp Ji continues to cherry-pick facts, and forgets the step-brotherly treatment given to civil aviation during the UPA Govt rule.” “FYI, here’s what a hands-on approach looks like: there has been an increase in fares, mostly, for routes that were earlier being serviced by GoFirst. The Ministry not only took cognisance of the issue quickly, but also intervened by sending strict advisories to airlines to self-regulate fares. The DGCA is closely monitoring the same. Fares have reduced by up to 60%, and are likely to decline further,” the minister said in a long Twitter post.
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