Tarun Vijay, Member of Parliament, told Sputnik that India should immediately shed the VT code and take up whatever code is closest to India's choice.
"India gained freedom in 1947 from the British. There is no need to carry on the colonial tag of VT meaning "Viceroy's Territory" when we have fought a revolutionary struggle against the British and threw their yoke. It is unfortunate that for so many years we carried the British tag. The Viceroy is the title that was worn by a Briton who conspired and presided over the partition of India. He organized the loot of our country and saw thousands of revolutionaries hanged for demanding freedom. How can his title represent India in any sector? Whatever new code we get, that is closest to our choice, we must get that and discard the use of VT immediately."
VT — the initials for "Viceroy's Territory" is the prefix that is used in the registration codes stamped on the sides of Indian aircraft since 1929. India was assigned the letters VT during the British Raj when it was still called the Viceroy's Territory.
The code is allotted by the International Civil Aviation Organization. Previous efforts to change the prefix were abandoned because the code 'I' for India and B for Bharat (Sanksrit for India) have already been taken by Italy and China respectively.
Prefixes beginning with “V” were once used by all British colonial territories. But many including Fiji, Nepal and Pakistan have since updated to codes reflecting their independent sovereign names.
