National: In response to a series of hoax bomb threats to several flights in the last few days, Union Minister of Civil Aviation Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu said the central government is trying to amend aircraft security rules and put culprits on a no-fly list. Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu said that the Civil Aviation Ministry is thoroughly pursuing the issue of hoax bomb threats and added that police have been probing to find the culprits responsible for such incidents.

What did Ram Mohan Naidu say about hoax bomb threats?

Speaking on the same, Minister Naidu told ANI, "There are continuous incidents that have been observed in the last week especially. So the ministry, we are thoroughly pursuing these issues, especially in terms of the cases that have also been registered and the police have been pursuing who is behind it." "From the ministry side, we are looking at a change in legislation, also change in some rules," said Naidu.

Who is behind such hoax calls?

When asked about the reason behind such hoax calls, the Civil Aviation Minister said, "It is very difficult to tell at this point. The police have to do the due diligence, they have to catch the perpetrators who are behind this issue. Once, we get to them, then it is easier for us to tell why they are doing it. What is the reason behind it."

"It seems to be that only one person gets onto Twitter (X) and he tweets about many different planes and then it creates chaos in the whole system," Mohan Naidu added.

He said they are in the process of employing intelligence and other important people from the Ministry of Home Affairs to avoid the recurrence of such incidents.

Centre trying to use intelligence, IB to probe hoax calls

"We are trying to use intelligence, IB and all the other important people who are there in this, especially home affairs and all, everyone is cooperating. We are taking it very seriously and we want to ensure that these kinds of incidents don't happen," Mohan Naidu added.

On the UDAN scheme, the minister said, "We are envisioning the UDAN scheme for further more than 10 years. We want to take it forward for 10 years because, in the next 5 years, we are planning to start 50 more airports or enhance the capacity of existing airports. Up to 2047, we feel that we have the capacity to increase the airports to more than 200. We have 157 today and we can take it up to 350."

He also added, "UDAN scheme has been a revolutionary scheme in civil aviation. It came out from the thought process of PM Narendra Modi who wanted to democratise air travel. The major beneficiaries when we utilised this UDAN scheme over the past 8 years have been remote areas of the country, especially the northeast areas or the hinterland areas where there was no connectivity at all. Now, they are properly connected through air travel, not just to other metropolitan cities of the country but also various other countries."