Indiver Rastogi, President and Group Head, Global Business Travel at Thomas Cook (India) and SOTC.

With the finance minister’s announcement of allocation of additional finances for the PM Gati Shakti scheme, we look forward to the government’s continuous focus on increasing connectivity by building new airports across Indian states. The issuance of E-passports with embedded chips will positively impact the travel sector and make oversees travel more convenient and enhance international travel growth by digitally upgrading the process. The strategic transfer of Air India being successfully completed is also a positive milestone for the industry.

However, with the aviation sector being among the worst hit due to COVID, we had anticipated tax concessions through reduction in ATF (Aviation Fuel Price) excise duty and allocation of concessional finance for airlines to help recover from the losses incurred during the pandemic. Such considerations from the government could have reduced costs which in turn would have resulted in revival/recovery of the sector.

From an overall travel and tourism perspective, the Union Budget did not provide any specific assistance to the sector.