Naidu reviews airlines' performance; asks them to ensure reasonable fares in festive season
New Delhi (PTI): Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu on Friday held a review meeting with officials of airlines to assess their operational and technical performance, and asked them to keep airfares at reasonable levels during the festive season.
Representatives of Air India, Air India Express, IndiGo, Akasa Air, Alliance Air, Fly91, FlyBig and IndiaOne Air, among others, participated in the meeting. They presented their performance metrics, including action taken reports on security incidents and passenger grievances, according to an official release.
During the meeting with the airline representatives that went on for more than five hours, Naidu emphasised that they should strictly adhere to safety protocols.
The periodic meeting also came against the backdrop of two incidents involving Air India's Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
Naidu asked airlines to adopt best practices in passenger convenience and service quality.
"Detailed discussions were held with each airline on identifying bottlenecks in their operations and addressing their challenges," an official release said on Friday.
Amid concerns about airfares surging during festive seasons when there is more traffic demand, the minister told the airlines to ensure that airfares remain reasonable across the sectors during the upcoming festival season.
"Airlines assured that passenger convenience will remain their top priority and informed that additional flight capacities have been deployed on high-traffic routes to meet festive demand," the release said.
The civil aviation ministry's passenger grievance redressal portal, AirSewa, has been upgraded for enabling passengers to register complaints related to high airfares.
The minister has also directed aviation regulator DGCA that its Tariff Monitoring Unit should keep a strict vigil to ensure compliance with the tariff range declared by airlines.
At the meeting, grievance redressal was discussed, with airlines asked to qualitatively close passenger grievances in a timely manner.
Civil Aviation Secretary Samir Kumar Sinha, DGCA DG Faiz Ahmed Kidwai and other senior ministry officials also participated in the meeting.
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3 officials of private banks arrested in Gujarat in Rs 2,500 crore cyber fraud; 20 held so far
Rajkot (PTI): Three officials of leading private banks were arrested for their alleged involvement in a Rs 2,500-crore cyber fraud racket in Gujarat's Rajkot district, bringing the number of those held so far in the case to 20, police said on Monday.
Those arrested were identified as Maulik Kamani, a personal manager at Yes Bank in Padadhari; Kalpesh Dangariya, a manager at Axis Bank in Jamnagar; and Anurag Baldha, a personal banker with HDFC Bank, Rajkot (Rural) Superintendent of Police Vijay Gurjar said.
Dangariya and Baldha were previously employed with Yes Bank, he added.
Kamani allegedly assisted the earlier arrested accused in opening and managing suspicious accounts. He also helped bypass banking alerts triggered by high-value transactions by submitting additional documentation to keep accounts active, the SP said.
Kamani was allegedly involved in cash withdrawals that were later routed through hawala channels (illegal money transfer system), supported by digital evidence recovered from his mobile device, he added.
Dangariya is accused of facilitating the opening of fraudulent accounts using fake or misrepresented identities, police said.
He also assisted in structuring documentation, including Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC)-related papers, to prevent transactions from being flagged as suspicious, they said.
On the other hand, Baldha opened new accounts after verification and certification processes as part of the racket, Gurjar informed.
All the three accused are in police custody, while others are in jail under judicial remand, SP said.
So far, police have identified 85 bank accounts linked to the racket with 535 complaints filed on the cyber crime portal.
The total transaction linked to the cyber fraud exceeds Rs 2,500 crore, police said.
The earlier fraud amount was pegged by police at Rs 1,500 crore.
