NEW DELHI, June 15: A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on Tuesday between the union ministries of Ports Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW), and the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) for the development of Sea Plane services in India, an official spokesman of the central government said.
As per the MoU, a Co-ordination Committee with officials of MoCA, MoPSW and Ministry of Tourism (MoT) will be set up for timely completion of operationalisation of Seaplane services at various locations. MoCA, MoPSW, and Sagarmala Development Company Limited (SDCL) will consider operationalising of Seaplane operating routes as suggested by all agencies.
MoPSW would identify and develop water front infrastructure of Aerodromes and obtain required statutory clearances in coordination with MoCA, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), and Airport Authority of India (AAI), by defining the timelines for all activities involved in the development of facilities for starting seaplane operations.
MoCA would carry out bidding and select potential airlines operators based on their commercial consideration through bidding process, incorporate the routes as identified by MoPSW and routes identified through bidding process in UDAN scheme document. MoCA will also provide financial support in respect of water aerodromes awarded under RCS-UDAN scheme and coordinate with Chief Secretaries of all States for the Seaplanes operations.
The union ports and shipping minister Mansukh Mandaviya and the civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri were present at the MoU signing ceremony.
Incidentally, the country’s first seaplane service was launched from the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad to the Statue of Unity in the downstream of the Narmada dam, a distance of about 200 kilometres, just before the 2019 Parliamentary elections but the services has remained suspended since then for most of the time for various technical reasons as well as the Covid pandemic.
(Manas Dasgupta)