Airfare hike: Is govt under pressure from airlines on fare monitoring cell?

New Delhi:It has been a year since the civil aviation ministry announced that a fare monitoring cell would be set up to prevent domestic carriers from indiscriminately hiking cost of tickets , but the ministry is still working on the proposal.
Fares have almost spiralled by over 50- 60 per cent compared to last year. Cost of tickets booked for the forthcoming festive season till January 2014 have increased by almost 100 per cent.
Civil aviation secretary K. N. Srivastava told Mail Today on Monday that the ministry is working on the proposal for a monitoring cell but refused to give any deadline as to when it will take off.
According to sources, airlines are pressuring the government from setting up such a cell. Officials admitted that there is no mechanism to know if tickets in the lower price band had been sold or not.
A senior government official said that the delay in setting up a fare monitoring cell clearly shows that the government is under pressure from airlines. "Every year, airlines jack up fares during or before the3 beginning of the peak season, which begins in October.
Read News In Full 17/09/13 Sanjay Singh/Business Today