The Ministry of Civil Aviation launched the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) also known as UDAN (UdeDeshkaAamNagrik) on 21st October 2016 to improve regional air connectivity in unserved and underserved airports in India and make air travel affordable for the masses.
As of 30th January 2023, 459 UDAN routes have been operationalized across 72 airports including 9 heliports and 2 water aerodromes, with over 1.13 crore passengers traveling on more than 2.16 lakh UDAN flights.
The government aims to develop 100 airports by 2024 and operationalize 1000 UDAN routes during the scheme’s duration. The scheme is ongoing with bidding rounds conducted regularly to cover more destinations and routes.
18 airports in Uttar Pradesh, 6 airports in Rajasthan, and 6 airports in Odisha have been identified under UDAN with some of them already operationalized. In addition, 9 heliports have been developed and operationalized in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand under the UDAN scheme.
However, implementing the scheme has not been without challenges such as the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the non-readiness of civil airports, the unsustainability of operations on awarded routes, the non-readiness of selected airline operators, and the non-availability of slots at metro airports like Mumbai and Pune.
The linkage between the Civil Aviation sector and Economic Growth is well established, with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) study showing that air connectivity has an economic multiplier of 3.1 and an employment multiplier of 6.1.
