The story so far: On June 7, Union Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia unveiled a national sports policy to promote sports like aerobatics, hot-air ballooning, and paragliding, with the aim of making India one of the top aerosports nations by 2030.
As part of the policy, a four-tier structure will be established to govern aero sports, with the Air Sports Federation of India (ASFI) as the apex body. The ASFI will be an autonomous body under the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA).
Speaking at the launch of the National Air Sports Policy 2022 (NASP 2022), Mr. Scindia said the air sports ecosystem in India holds the potential to generate over 1 lakh direct jobs and generate annual revenue of Rs 10,000 crore. “From a small market size of around 5,000 odd air sports practitioners creating around Rs 80-100 crore of annual revenue in India, I feel we can target over Rs 8,000-10,000 crore annual revenue and generate over 1,00,000 direct jobs. The economic multiplier benefits in terms of travel, tourism, support services and local infrastructure development will be over three times,” the minister remarked.
