At Half Way Mark, Government's UDAN Scheme Is Work In Progress

Aiming to attach small cities with aerial routes to present the quintessential widespread man or ‘aam admi' the chance to undertake air journey, the federal government had unveiled the regional connectivity scheme (RCS) – UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) on October 21, 2016.Under it,100 new airports in addition to heliports and water aerodromes are to be developed between 2019 and 2024 to assist the UDAN scheme. In addition to this, 780 legitimate routes have been allotted to shortlisted airways after 4 rounds of bidding.The Airports Authority of India has earmarked a sum of about Rs 25,000 crores for a interval of 5 years, i.e. from 2019 to 2024, throughout which the 100 new airports, heliports and water dromes will likely be made operational.As of now although, out of 780 legitimate routes, solely 359 routes have been made operational, based on official sources.The replace on airports reveals that whereas within the fiscal yr 2019-20, 9 airports have been developed, 14 airports had been developed until the third quarter of 2020-21 (i.e. December 2020), out of the proposed goal of 26 airports which have been to be developed throughout that fiscal.In the present fiscal (2021-22) and in 2023-23, 20 airports apiece are to be developed whereas 25 airports in 2023-24 are to be developed.Therefore as per the knowledge offered by the civil aviation ministry itself, until December 2020, solely 23 airports had been developed underneath the UDAN scheme, at the same time as it's half method via its tenure interval.As far as parameters adopted for figuring out airports underneath the UDAN scheme is anxious, the civil aviation ministry has mentioned that it's a market pushed scheme, underneath which airways, primarily based on their evaluation of demand on explicit routes, submit their proposals on the time of bidding.An airport which is included within the awarded routes of RCS - UDAN and requires upgradation or improvement for graduation of RCS operations, is developed underneath "revival of unserved and underserved airports" scheme.The UDAN scheme is funded via a Rs 50 levy on flight tickets on main routes. The levy accounts for 80 % of the viability hole funding offered to the airways, with the remaining 20 per cent offered by state governments.