NEW DELHI: Lack of infrastructure development at Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) airports and unwillingness of selected airline operator (SAO) to fly on the routes connecting smaller cities have slowed down the progress of government’s ambitious UDAN scheme.
Nearly Rs 1,100 crore has been spent on development of RCS airports in last two years. However, only 43 small cities out of total selected 137 (for which routes were awarded in last three phases of UDAN) have been connected.
Like routes connecting Jeypore, Utkela, Rourkela and Jharsuguda airports were awarded in the first round of bidding, but it was subsequently cancelled due to the non compliance by SAOs. Similarly, seven out of nine routes were cancelled in J&K and Ladakh. The routes cancelled included Jammu—Kargil, Srinagar—Thoise, Chandigarh-Thoise and Kargil-Srinagar.
The ministry of civil aviation has now included the cities like Kargil and Thoise in the phase 4 of Udan which was announced only this week.
Officials said that a pre-feasibility study has been carried out by multi-disciplinary team of AAI for development of Kargil Airport for civil operations suitable to operate Airbus 320 type of aircraft. AAI has also taken up the matter with International Civil Aviation Organization to explore the feasibility of aircraft such as B-737 operations to Kargil Airport.
There are many such cases across the country. In Madhya Pradesh, four routes including Raipur-Bilaspur-Ambikapur -Bilaspur-Raipur-Jharsuguda- Raipur-Raigarh -Raipur -Jagdalpur - Vishakhapatnam -Jagdalpur- Raipur routes were awarded and later cancelled as the operator did not comply.
According to officials, no valid bid for operation of RCS flights connecting Bilaspur Airport was received in subsequent rounds of bidding under RCS-UDAN. Similarly, routes from Rourkela to Bhubaneswar and Rourkela to Raipur were awarded to SAOs. However, operations could not be commenced due to non-readiness of Rourkela Airport for the aircraft (ATR-72) mentioned in the bid by the SAO.
Government had launched RCS - UDAN in October 2016 to stimulate regional air connectivity by making it affordable. Under UDAN, 688 routes have been awarded, out of which only 232 routes took off.
