New Delhi, Oct 17 (IANS): The Civil Aviation Ministry organised a conference of the secretaries of civil aviation of all the states and Union Territories here at Vigyan Bhavan on Monday.

The conference was aimed to promote greater collaboration and synergy between state civil aviation departments and the ministry to augment the development of the sector.

Officials said that subjects of infrastructure support such as the extent of land requirement for different types of airports, pending cases of handing over of land, taxation related issues such as VAT, tax incentives for promoting FTO, MRO, and others were deliberated in the conference.

Civil aviation policies of states and UTs and promotion of last mile connectivity were also discussed during the conference.

The inaugural session was chaired by Rajiv Bansal, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation.

The conference began with the opening remarks of the secretary and was followed by presentations on various initiatives and programmes of the ministry.

Bansal said, "There has been a lot of progress in the last year. Domestic air traffic is almost near to the pre-Covid level, multiple new airports have been inaugurated, and new routes have been launched, policy steps to promote drone, helicopter medical emergency services and fractional ownership have been initiated."

He requested states to reduce VAT on ATF and appreciated those states who have already done it.

Interactions on Udan, Krishi Udan, aviation security, developments of airports, greenfield airports, heliports, water aerodromes and others also took place during the conference.