UDAN PHASE-II, FOCUS ON NORTHEASTERN AND HILLY STATES

The Union Government has announced the phase-2 of UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik), the regional air connectivity scheme and allocated around 40% of air routes for Northeastern and hill states.

Under the second round of UDAN, 73 underserved and unserved airports and helipads would be connected and 29 lakh seats will be added annually.
129 out of 325 air routes are awarded for Northeastern and hill states, with the aim to enhance air connectivity to remote terrains.
The second round includes some of the strategic locations, where civil air connectivity will be provided for the first time, such as Kargil in Jammu & Kashmir, Pakyong in Sikkim, and Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh.
For the second phase of RCS, the routes have been awarded to 15 airlines and helicopter operators after the bidding, these include SpiceJet, IndiGo, Jet Airways and Air India Subsidiary Alliance Air.
The government has tweaked the guidelines of the project and allowed helicopters to fly in the difficult terrain regions and included four helicopter operators- Heligo Charters, Heritage Aviation, Pawan Hans, and Skyone Airways to ferry passengers on these routes.
The government generally provides viability gap funding for 50 % of the seats set aside for being offered at discounted rates by airlines and all seats up to 13 passenger seats for helicopters.

Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik (UDAN) is a Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) of Union government to let the common citizen of the country fly and making the air travel affordable and widespread, in order to boost inclusive national economic development, increase in employment opportunities, and air transport infrastructure development of all the regions and states of the country.
During the first phase of the RCS, about 27 served airports, 12 underserved airports and 33 unserved airports were connected, including one in Andaman Nicobar, three in Assam, two each in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan.

Since the time of our independence, we had 75 airports in connected by scheduled airlines, Now, UDAN-I & UDAN-2 have added around 80 airports in the country and 50 lakh seats, this year airlines can see 120-130 million passenger trips. With phase 2, the problem of difficult terrain which remained unaddressed in phase 1, will be solved. The scheme is getting its desired results and will not require subsidy as proposal sought by Airlines, received with bids were for zero viability gap funding or subsidy. The aviation ecosystem is transforming and becoming affordable and accessible to the common man and bringing connectivity to a large number of remote areas.

Saturday, 27 January 2018