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User fee issue likely to dominate CIAL meeting

Nedumbassery: The contentious issue of charging a user development fee from air passengers is likely to trigger a heated row at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) scheduled for Friday, if the director board meeting scheduled on the eve of the AGM fails to take a decision on the issue.

The last AGM had witnessed heated arguments on the subject, with the proposal to reintroduce the fee splitting the company shareholders and directors into two groups. As a consequence, the Chief Minister and company chairman V.S. Achuthanandan had entrusted the board of directors with the task of arriving at a consensus.

The airport, since its inception, had been charging a user development fee of Rs. 500 from all departing international passengers till January 2006 when the previous United Democratic Front government decided to do away with the practice.

According to company officials, CIAL has had to forgo over Rs. 250 crore, using which it could have completed its first phase of development in five years.

The issue has become a sensitive one with a section of the shareholders arguing that charging the fee would amount to exploiting low paid Non-Resident Keralites.

It will also reappoint Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac and Revenue Minister K.P. Rajendran as company directors. Chief Secretary Neela Gangadharan will also be included in the director board.

Airport sources said that with its annual growth rate of 20 per cent in flight movements, CIAL would soon require an additional property of 1,200 acres for constructing a secondary runway to attain the optimum level of operations.

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