AGARTALA, December 12 (TIWN): The sudden rise in air fares and cancellation of flights over the last couple of days badly hit hundreds of Agartala passengers flying to Ko9lkata, Delhi and other places.

And this has now made an easy entry of the politics here, when the opposition congress blamed the ruling left front and CPI (M) for its failure to take a stock of the situation, and on the other the CPI (M) criticized the centre for failing to regulate the aviation industry.

Services in the Agartala sector became irregular since the last week of November. Fight fares in the Kolkata-Agartala sector have soared to Rs 15,000. And it is to be mentioned here that, unfortunately, all private airlines have sold out tickets in these sectors to some travel agencies who have booked all tickets in advance anticipating passenger pressure in December. Now, even the airlines don't have any ticket to sell directly to customers. It is also mentionable here that some travel agencies purchased tickets in bulk in fake names. Now, they are selling those to customers at a higher price.

Everyday, flights are either delayed or cancelled without any intimation and passengers are not even getting compensated. They are now being forced to book tickets at a higher price.

It is to be mentio9ned here that recently the state govt. on its cabinet decision slashed the ATF VAT tax to 18%, whereas earlier it was 22% in Tripura. . Due to this high ATF VAT of 18% various airline authorities had already dropped the service from Tripura. Recently, Jet Airways too withdrew its flight services from Agartala Airport. Though, after reducing 4% of ATF VAT it is still very high compared to the other states.  

According to the recent data; Telangana has planned to bring down the VAT on ATF to about 4 per cent. Currently, Gujarat, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal levy 4-5 per cent sales tax on ATF followed by Goa, which last year reduced the tax slab from 22-12.5 per cent.

States such as West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have slashed the value-added tax on aviation turbine fuel (ATF), the consequence of which has been a big jump in flights, leading to a sharp increase in passenger traffic. Even one of the North Eastern States, Manipur had reduced the ATF VAT upto 2% also. But in case of Tripura, the ATF VAT tax stands so tall that it is now badly hitting the Agartala passengers leading a section of travel agencies to earn two paisa.