India to drop 'Viceroy' registration code from its aircraft after government says it his 'high time' it moved on from its colonial past 

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India is to remove the 'Viceroy' tag from its airport codes, one of the last vestiges of its British colonial past.

The registration codes stamped on the side of all Indian aircraft have begun with the initials VT - for Viceroy Territory - since 1929.

India's parliament has now launched a bid to replace the prefix, saying it 'high time' to move on from the country's imperial past.

This Air India Express Boeing 737 is pictured about to take off at Birmingham airport. The VT code - for Viceroy Territory - can be seen on the fuselage at the rear of the plane

A parliamentary report said: 'The Indian civil aviation sector has grown stupendously and it can be compared to any other developed nation.

'The committee also feels that it is high time to set aside the sign of a colonial past and acquire a new call sign which appropriately denotes the Indian civil aviation sector.'

Previous efforts to change the prefix have faltered because no another code distinctly identifies India. 

India has changed a great deal since the last viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, left the sub-continent. A plane is pictured coming in to land in Chennai, better known under the Raj as the city of Madras

The initial I belongs to Italy.

Two-letter 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.

Codes are allotted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. 

British planes fly under codes beginning with 'G', standing for Great Britain.

A train of the New Delhi Metro is pictured passing by a Hindu temple dedicated to and made in a likeness of Lord Hanuman the monkey god. It is almost 70 years since India gained her independence from Britain