- Tuesday, April 29, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Aiming to plug a growing trade deficit, India has proposed slashing the import of private jets and helicopters, according to a report by Bloomberg which has seen a document from the country’s aviation ministry. The decision faced criticism from some industry experts.
The letter dated December 6 said any import of planes weighing above 15,000 kilograms (33,100 pounds) unladen and turbo jets are also “non-essential” and should not be imported from abroad as much as it is done now, the report added.
According to the document, the Indian government will identify ways to “boost exports and contain a surge of non-essential imports so as to bring down the trade deficit”.
It also sought that bodies such as India’s aviation regulator, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and National Aerospace Laboratories should be consulted to devise a strategy, the Bloomberg report added.
However, a representative for the country’s civil aviation ministry did not immediately respond to a request for a reaction.
While the move may benefit the Indian government’s plan to boost leasing of jets from the International Financial Services Centre in Gujarat, it might hurt aircraft manufacturers that cater to some of India’s ultra-rich, including Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s second-richest person who has a Boeing business jet, and Tata Group’s patriarch Ratan Tata who flies in a Dassault Falcon 2000 jet, the Bloomberg report added.
It also said that the recommendations are at odds with India’s vision to encourage adoption of helicopters in a big nation such as India that doesn’t have much local manufacturing of aircraft.
While the country’s aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has said in the past that India, Asia’s third-largest economy, is working to raise shared ownership of helicopters to make them accessible to more people, reducing exports without having adequate local manufacturing of helicopters and private jets could hurt the country, the report said.
Mark Martin, founder of Martin Consulting LLC, Dubai, called the proposal “baffling and shocking”. Martin, who received a copy of the letter, was quoted as saying, “It is both baffling and shocking to note that the government considers aircraft, helicopters and business jets as non-essential imports.”
“Aircraft and helicopters are an imperative air transport medium that act as a catalyst to economic growth and directly contributes back to the government in indirect taxes.”
According to him, the ploy could “destroy” Bombardier Inc.’s market in the South Asian nation considering a lot of its business jets have come into it.
Kanika Tekriwal, founder of private jet operator JetSetGo Aviation Services Pvt, also slammed the ministry’s proposal, saying while the industry should use products made in India, the reality is there are no companies that locally manufacture private jets and helicopters, the Bloomberg report added.
According to her, the government should focus on reducing the trade deficit on account of private jets being sent abroad for maintenance due to lack of infrastructure at home.
The import of helicopters with an unladen weight of over 2,000 kilograms rose 42 per cent in the five months through September from a year earlier, the letter showed.
Imports of turbo jets, on the other hand, increased by 34 per cent, it added.
