120 more locations under UDAN scheme, 4 crore people to be air connected in next 10 years: Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu

120 more locations under UDAN scheme, 4 cr people to be air connected in next 10 years: Minister of Civil Aviation Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu

The government plans to add 120 new locations through the UDAN scheme in the next 10 years and aims to connect 4 crore people through it, Minister of Civil Aviation Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu informed the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour, the minister said the UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme is one of the most successful schemes in the country and many other countries have praised it.

"The thought process behind the scheme has been to connect all the airports together. It has been observed that many of the airports even after building, the viability was an issue for the airlines to start connectivity. It was at that point, the UDAN scheme was envisaged and the viability gap funding was given," the minister said.

"We have almost given 1.5 crore people of the county the benefits due to the UDAN scheme," the minister also told the house.

In the recent budget speech, he said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman extended the UDAN scheme for another 10 years and we are extending it because of the success of the scheme.

"In the last 10 years we have connected 1.5 crore people and in the next 10 years, we want to connect 4 crore more people and bring in 120 new destinations," he said.
Noting that we are talking about 120 new locations being connected to the UDAN scheme, Naidu said the way this UDAN scheme functions, we have taken the under-served and unserved airports which have less than seven air connectivity in a week..

He said there the government bids the routes and the airlines come in through a transparent bidding process.
On complaints that UDAN routes are not continuing after some time, the minister said the UDAN routes are only there for three years.

"It is not that eternally we want to subsidise and give the viability gap funding to all these routes. It is to help kickstart that region, it is to kickstart that route and airport and start connectivity," he said.

On the issue of decongestion of major airports, he said the bringing in of all these unutilised airports with less activity, once you make more connectivity to these obviously decongestion happens.

"Congestion happens when the connectivity flows to one airport, which is why we want to spread the connectivity to different airports. With the coming in of more airports, congestion happens," he said.

On high airfares, the minister said we are following the international principle where the market drives the airfares.
"We are ensuring our best from the ministry, because we don't want airfares to be high," Naidu said.

"If we have more aircraft in the country, we from the ministry are trying to ensure more number of aircraft to come in. We want more airlines to come in and we are promoting the industry to ensure that price dynamics are ensured," he said.

The minister also said that we have a tariff monitoring unit under the DGCA and it considers the previous year's data and if there is any exorbitant rise, we have a meeting with the airlines.

He said even during the recent Maha Kumbh, the ministry held a meeting with the airlines whenever the airfares were exorbitant.