Page 60 - 30NOV2019EA

Despite challenges,

UDAN continues to

soar to new heights

The ambitious UDAN scheme has made a significant contribution in helping India’s domestic
aviation sector grow, but the bottlenecks need to be cleared, writes younis dar

n October 2016, Prime Minister in January 2019, which according to the try. The UDAN flights have grown to
Narendra Modi announced his government had received enthusiastic more than 160 routes across the country.
flagship scheme, UDAN, to make response from the bidders. Being the The government introduced opening
air travel affordable for the com- biggest bidding under the scheme so far, of new routes to select destinations for
I mon man. Called the RCS (region- UDAN 3 included new tourist routes, sea- tourism purposes this year. Additionally,
al connectivity scheme)- UDAN (Ude planes for connecting water aerodromes connectivity of north east regions was
Desh ka Aam Naagrik), the citizens are and bringing a number of air routes in high on the agenda in the third phase of
provided air connectivity to the second the North East under the scheme. UDAN bidding and multiple routes had been
tier and three-tier cities. Under UDAN, 3 set an ambitious target of adding 69.30 sanctioned. Already, the scheme has
the passengers get subsidised flights at lakh seats on annual basis on 235 routes, helped create more than a crore seats in
2,500 per hour of flight. The govern- UDAN 1 had set a target of 13 lakh seats, the aviation industry, significantly boost-
ment announced a subsidy outlay 214 while UDAN 2 set it at 29 lakh. The third ing the domestic aviation sector. The
crore per annum in the first phase, the round of UDAN envisaged connecting opening of International routes in the
amount was enhanced to 500 crore for 89 airports across the country, which in- third phase has the potential to further
the second phase. cluded 16 unserved and 17 underserved increase the gains for the common man
The third phase of the ambitious airports, besides 6 water aerodromes as well as the economy.
UDAN scheme was announced this year and 50 served airports across the coun- The government received a total of 111

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