There seems to have been a sudden realization in India’s Civil Aviation Ministry circles that cargo has been ignored for far too long.
     Though the fact might not be accepted by officials in the ministry, proposals for the establishment of cargo facilities that were pending for quite some time have been given the green signal.
     The moves, perhaps, are also linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s thrust on infrastructure.
     One such proposal wants to establish a permanent cargo terminal at Amritsar International Airport.
     The state government of Punjab sent a request to the government-controlled Airports Authority of India (AAI), which operates the Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport at Amritsar, to turn the existing temporary cargo terminal into a permanent one.
     The state also said that the Punjab government would give the land required to enhance the cargo facility.
     In its request to AAI, the Punjab government pointed out that a permanent cargo terminal was required to help exporters of fruits and vegetables.
     While these perishables exporters were losing business because of the lack of international flights from Amritsar, a lack of temperature-controlled storing facilities compounded the problem.
     Not too long ago, there were flights from Amritsar to London, Birmingham, and Toronto.
     Exporters used these flights to send fruits and vegetables to the Punjabi diaspora settled in Britain and Canada.
     Now with the government at Delhi giving the nod for the establishment of the permanent cargo terminal at the international airport in the city, there is hope that international flights will be restarted.
     Amritsar airport has been handling consignments of baby corn, snow peas, sugar snap, okra and other vegetables from the state as well as the adjoining state of Himachal Pradesh to Europe and Canada from the Temporary Perishable Cargo Centre since July 2006, when it started functioning.
     However, without the direct flights, the perishables have been going to Delhi for the onward journey abroad.
     Vegetable exporters have stopped sending their consignments on the eight-hour, time-consuming journey to Delhi.
     According to the Council for Value Added Horticulture (CVAH), which has been operating the present cargo center, exports had dwindled to a handful a month.
     Built on a paltry 6,500 sq. mt., it has a capacity to handle 80 tons of perishables every day—but all manually.
     The cargo center—with its six temperature controlled chambers, two X-ray machines, and six employees—is under-utilized for want of direct international flights.
     Also, any consignment takes a minimum of three to four hours for the paperwork and scanning to be completed.
     Once that is done, the consignments are sent to temperature-controlled storages. The long, drawn-out process has often resulted in whole consignments getting spoilt.
     The permanent cargo complex will bring about a sea change in the export of perishables.
     First, it will be able to handle 200 tons a day.
     In addition, the manual system will be disbanded and a digital system with bar codes for the cargo boxes will be in place.
     The new terminal will be utilized to its capacity only when direct international flights begin.
     That could take a while; Amritsar Airport is witness to a saga of discontinued flights.
     Jet Airways started Amritsar-London-Toronto flights, but it was stopped—apparently due to the global recession. Air India took its place with its Amritsar-Birmingham flights, which, incidentally, were very popular.
     In fact, many in Air India termed the flight as the most successful in the history of the airline.
Later, that was stopped as well.
     Then, British Midland International (BMI) introduced a thrice-weekly London-Almaty-Amritsar service in October 2011.
     The flights were stopped after nearly a year of operations in October 2012.
     Quite some time ago, a group of non-resident Indians (NRIs)—a number of them settled in the U.S. and Canada—held a meet to impress upon the Punjab government to realize the potential of the Amritsar Airport.
     At the meet—held under the auspices of the Amritsar Vikas Manch (loosely translated as the Amritsar Development Association)—the participants pointed out that the airport’s strategic location should have been cashed in upon and utilized.
     Nearly three million people from the districts surrounding the airport were in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. Amritsar was capable of generating 300 passengers for the cities of Birmingham, Toronto, Vancouver, and London.
     But no India-based carrier had started services.
     The Manch even forwarded an idea: station six planes in Amritsar (for a flight each to London and Birmingham and two each for Toronto and Vancouver) and the airport would be able to earn a profit.
     These direct flights would also carry cargo—vegetables, fruits, and other edibles—in addition to full complements of passengers.
Tirthankar Ghosh