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UDAN

Diksha Sharma December 24, 2021 5 MINUTES

UDAN ( Ude desh ka aam nagrik )

  • The scheme is aimed at enhancing connectivity to remote and regional areas of the country and making air travel affordable.
  • It is a key component of Centre’s National civil aviation policy led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and launched in June 2017.
  • It is also known as the regional connectivity scheme (RCS) as it seeks to improve air connectivity to tier-2 and tier-3 cities through revival of unused and underused airports.
  • Under the scheme, nearly half of the seats in Udan flights are offered at subsidised fares, and the participating carriers are provided a certain amount of viability gap funding – an amount shared between the Centre and the concerned states.
  • The scheme will be jointly funded by the central government and state governments.
  • The scheme will run for 10 years and can be extended thereafter.

Key features of the scheme

  1. Airlines are awarded routes under the programme through a bidding process and are required to offer airfares at the rate of ₹2,500 per hour of flight.
  2. At least 50% of the total seats on an aircraft have to be offered at cheaper rates.
  3. In order to enable airlines to offer affordable fares they are given a subsidy from the Government for a period of three years.
  4. The Government had also earmarked ₹4,500 crore for revival of 50 airports in the first three years.

UDAN 4.0:

  • The 4th round of UDAN was launched in December 2019 with a special focus on North-Eastern Regions, Hilly States, and Islands.
  • The airports that had already been developed by Airports Authority of India (AAI) are given higher priority for the award of VGF (Viability Gap Funding) under the Scheme.
  • Under UDAN 4, the operation of helicopters and seaplanes has also been incorporated.

What have been the challenges?

  • Poor financial health of many smaller, regional carriers have been a bane for the scheme.
  • Many players don’t have more than one or two planes and they are often poorly maintained. New planes are too expensive for these smaller players.

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