MHA Releases Rs 799-Crore Helicopter Subsidy to Northeastern States

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) released an amount of Rs 798.95 crore from financial year 2015-16 to 2023-24 to the Northeastern states for a helicopter subsidy scheme. The scheme was introduced in order to provide connectivity to remote areas of NER and in emergency cases.

 According to the North East Division of MHA, the helicopter subsidy scheme is being administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in the NE States of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Mizoram, and Manipur to provide connectivity to remote areas. It further aims to provide affordable passenger transport in NER, evacuation during natural calamities, urgent medical evacuation, etc. MHA bears 75% of total cost of operation after deducting passenger recovery or flat 20% of actual operation cost, whichever is more. For the purpose of restricting subsidy, the annual ceiling of flying hours has been fixed for the helicopter service operating in these states.

According to data from MHA, the financial year-wise breakdown of the expenditure/fund release to the NE states is: Rs 76.45 crore in 2015-16, Rs 86 crore in 2016-17, Rs 86 crore in 2017-18, Rs 90 crore in 2018-19, Rs 100 crore in 2019-20, Rs 72.50 crore in 2020-21, Rs 100 crore in 2021-22, Rs 100 crore in 2022-23, and Rs 88 crore in the last financial year of 2023-24.

The types of helicopters operating in the NE region include Dauphin, MI-172, Bell 412, and Bell 407, among other models. Each state has a particular number of flying hours sanctioned by MHA per annum.

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