The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the authorities to start air services to Shimla or the court will issue an order for it.
A three-judge bench presided over by the chief justice took strong note of lack of air connectivity to the capital of Himachal Pradesh.
The court asked the authorities to tell by May 4 if air services to Shimla would be launched or not. It said that its interim order, issued on December 16 last year, shall not prevent these authorities from enforcing the obligation of providing 10% of the capacity deployed on Category-I routes (trunk routes) to Category-II routes.
Under the government’s Route Dispersal Guidelines, Category-I routes are the busy routes connecting major metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai, while Category-II are those in remote and difficult parts of the country, including Jammu and Kashmir, Northeast and the island territories.
Published 21 April 2016, 19:52 IST