Minister of Civil Aviation launches National Air Sports Policy

What is the News?

The Minister of Civil Aviation has launched National Air Sport Policy 2022 (NASP 2022).

Note: Air sports encompasses various sports activities involving the medium of air. These include sports like air-racing, aerobatics, aero modeling, hang gliding, paragliding, paramotoring and skydiving etc. 

What is National Air Sport Policy 2022(NASP 2022)?

Aim: To lay out the vision of making India as one of the top sports nations by 2030 by providing a safe, affordable, accessible, enjoyable and sustainable air sports ecosystem in India.

Objectives:

– Promote an air sports culture in the country.

– Enable adoption of international good practices in safety including but not limited to, air sports infrastructure, equipment, operations, maintenance and training.

– Develop a simple, stakeholder-friendly and effective governance structure.

– Enhance participation and success of Indian sportspersons in global air sports events; and

– Promote design, development and manufacturing of air sports equipment in India in line with the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.

Sports Covered: The policy will cover air sports such as aerobatics, aeromodelling, model rocketry, amateur-built and experimental aircraft, ballooning, drones, gliding and powered gliding. It also covers hang-gliding and powered hang-gliding, parachuting (including skydiving, BASE jumping and wingsuit flying), paragliding and paramotoring (including powered parachute trikes), powered aircraft and rotorcraft.

Four Tier Governance Structure: Under the policy, there will be a four-tier governance structure for air sports in India namely:

– Air Sports Federation of India(ASFI) is the apex governing body

– National associations for individual air sports or a set of air sports, as appropriate

– Regional (e.g. West/ South/ North East etc.) or State and Union Territory level units of the national air sports associations, as appropriate and

– District-level air sports associations as appropriate.

Source: The post is based on the article “Minister of Civil Aviation launches National Air Sports Policy” published in PIB on 7th June 2022.