NEW DELHI, 21 October 2004 — The union Cabinet yesterday decided to clear 82,000 applications of pilgrims going on Haj this year. This is 10,000 applications more than last year.
“We had applications for 82,000 Haj pilgrims and the Cabinet decided to clear all of them. The subsidy would be the same as paid last year,” Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Gulam Nabi Azad told reporters here.
Earlier yesterday, in a major reform measure, the union government hiked Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cap in the civil aviation sector from 40 to 49 percent. The Cabinet decision was announced by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel.
However, the proposal to allow foreign airlines to pick up equity in the domestic carriers is understood to have been dropped.
According to a note submitted by the Civil Aviation Ministry, the hike in FDI limit was part of the proposals made by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in his annual budget for 2004-05, the sources said.
While pegging the plan outlay for the sector at about Rs.16.21 billion, a hike of about Rs1.35 billion from the revised estimate for the last fiscal, the government had said there was an “urgent need” for infusing huge amounts of capital in this sector, they said.
The proposal to hike the FDI cap had drawn protests from the leftist parties that are extending crucial outside support to the UPA government.
The government also announced that the national carrier Indian Airlines, will get a grant of Rs. 1.24 billion to clear the liabilities of Vayudoot Ltd. on a one-time settlement basis.
