Flying from Mumbai airport may become costlier from next year if a proposal to levy an additional fee from passengers to fund the Colaba-Seepz line metro rail project gets accepted. The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA), which floated the proposal, will take a final decision after receiving suggestions from the stakeholders about this.
The tariff regulator has made the proposal following a submission by airport operator Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) seeking permission to charge additional development fee that would be used towards putting in place metro rail connectivity.
The AERA has suggested levying “an additional development fee (DF) of '15 for each embarking domestic passenger and '75 for each embarking international passenger towards metro connectivity project.”
According to the proposal issued by the AERA, which is with The Asian Age, if the additional charge is collected as per the current ratio of 1:6, the present DF per domestic passenger which is Rs 100 now rise to Rs 123, while DF for international passengers will rise from Rs 600 to Rs 738 .
The AERA also proposed the plan charge ratio to 1.1 in which an increment of Rs 57 will be imposed on passengers. This scheme is somewhere beneficial for international passengers as they will have to pay '657 while domestic passengers have to pay Rs 157.
MIAL currently levies a DF of Rs 600 from international passengers and Rs 100 from domestic passengers flying out of Mumbai airport.
According to the proposal, it will result in a sum of Rs 518 crore being raised till financial year 2020. Of this amount, Rs 282 crore will come from domestic passengers and while Rs 236 crore will come from international passengers.
The new DF collection is likely to start from November 2015 and the Metro stations are expected to be completed in FY 2019-20. The DF fee won’t be applicable for children below two years and transit passengers. The fresh proposal is part of a consultation paper titled ‘Determination of Development Fee in Respect of the Metro Connectivity Project for Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai,’ on which the comments of all stakeholders’ have been sought till November 26.
