'We don't have enough planes to fly all domestic passengers'

Jyotiraditya Scindia, Union Minister of Civil Aviation and Steel, reveals why there has been a surfeit of aviation orders from India, the government's plans for the sector, and the road to carbon neutrality

- Manish Pant

He is among a handful of Cabinet Ministers to have been publicly praised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for their achievements. As a minister handling the important portfolios of civil aviation and steel, 52-year-old Jyotiraditya Scindia has a clear mandate: to tap into the enormous potential of the two sectors to drive their growth. In an exclusive interview with Business Today’s Manish Pant, Scindia explains why there has been a surfeit of aviation orders from India, the government’s ambitious plans to turn the world’s fastest-growing aviation market into a global hub and make the sector carbon-neutral, and the extension of PLI 2.0 to the steel sector. Edited excerpts:

Q: Are you satisfied with the way India’s aviation sector has recovered after the Covid-19 pandemic?

A: The civil aviation sector in India is on a resurgent high. Where two years ago we had all our planes on the ground and not a single passenger, today we have all our planes in the air, and there is a sustained increase in [passenger] demand. We experienced a pre-Covid-19 high of roughly 420,000 passengers per day in October of 2019. Surprisingly, post the October-January high season, we are experiencing new highs with close to 455,000 passengers [per day] in February. And the important thing is that it’s not a blip. On a sustained basis, the average numbers have been between 390,000-440,000 every day.