Nagpur to have three more flights

Nagpur will soon have three more flights, which will connect the city to Varanasi and Lucknow in the North and Chennai in southern India, said civil aviation minister, Praful Patel.

The minister was in the city to attend the unveiling ceremony of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar statue, after whom the airport is named. He, however, declined to name the airlines that would be operating in these sectors.

He urged Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to reduce sales tax on air turbine fuel (ATF) from around 24 per cent to 4 per cent for more airports in the state.

"The taxes have been reduced for non-metro stations such as Nagpur and Aurangabad but we need to reduce the same for Mumbai and Pune," he said pointing out that ATF rates had spiralled leading to airlines contemplating an increase in ticket rates.

Patel said that some other non-metro airports in the state such as Baramati, Nanded and Akola would also be developed to bring them on the air-map of the country.

Agriculture minister Shard Pawar, in his inaugural address, cleared all doubts about the cargo-hub project being moved out of Nagpur.

"The project is not being shifted out of Nagpur to Pune or any other destination. Pune is already saturated and Vidarbha needs such a massive project to help push development," he said.