UDAN – Flying to the Future
UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) is a regional airport development project which aims at making air travel affordable and widespread. This indeed will help in national economic development, job growth air transport infrastructure development of all regions and states of India. after the implementation of UDAN, 406 airports were unserved out of 486. 27 were well served out of 62 non- RCS airports and 12 operational out of 18. the idea is to rush the development and operation of India’s Airport. They are aiming to enhance the traffic of nearly 425 unserved, underserved and mostly underdeveloped regional airports.
Components :
The scheme has two components –
- The first component is to develop new and enhance the existing regional airports.Arguably they are trying to increase number of operational airports for the scheduled civilian flights from 70 to 150 airports.Funding of ₹45,000 million was sanctioned for the enhancement of 50 regional airports was approved in May 2017. In round 1, out of 70 airports, 43 regional airports operationalised. RCS-Udan operations have commenced from 13 regional airports and additional 12 regional airports are ready to receive flights. 18 regional airports still require significant upgrade as per the report.
- The Second component is to connect more than 100 underserved and unserved airports in smaller towns with each other. Similarly connecting them with served airports in bigger cities by using “Viability Gap Funding” (VGF) is next step.
Issues :
- Poor infrastructure and lack of operational readiness of airports in remote areas.
- lack of availability of bays in the private airport in the large metro cities.
- Shortage of pilots.
- Strict rules.
- DGCA and AAI rules and regulations are the main hurdles.
The talking point is government is responsible for most of the hurdles. Meanwhile, situation tends to get worse as airlines plan to add 900 aircraft. IndiGo 448, Spicejet 157, GoAir 119, Jet Airways 81, AirAsia 60, Air India 19, Zoom Air 19, Vistara 5, Trujet 6. AAI announced that as the part of its ₹200,000 million, it will add 273 bays at 24 major airports. In conclusion Government need a solid plan to turn the face of aviation industry into beautiful one. Presently they are doing fine but they are still lacking precision in operations.
Source : Wikipedia
