In a bid to attract more tourists to Agra and Varanasi, the Uttar Pradesh government has slashed the value added tax (VAT) on jet fuel (aviation turbine fuel or ATF) from 21 percent to 4 percent to all flights coming to these two cities, an official said friday.
Director General, Tourism, Amrit Abhijaat told IANS that a government order (GO) to this effect has already been issued.
He said that this had been done essentially to encourage more and more flights to these destinations.
"The idea is to encourage more and more chartered flights, private air carriers to start operations to these tourist hotspots," Abhijaat added. Any plane, other than defence aircraft, at these twin cities would now on be given a VAT exemption of 17 per cent.
The official also informed that for now the flights at Agra were minimal while Varanasi had seven-eight flights every day. The VAT exemption would be for all private carriers, daily fliers and charter flights.
The tourism sector had been demanding slashing of the VAT for a long time as they felt such a move would give a fresh impetus to tourism.