Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik (UDAN)/Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS)

UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) is a Regional Airport Development and “Regional Connectivity Scheme” (RCS) of Government of India, with the objective of “letting the common citizen of the country fly”, aimed at making air travel affordable and widespread, to boost inclusive national economic development, job growth and air transport infrastructure development of all regions and states of India.

• UDAN 4.0 (fourth phase) is announced in December, 2019. The focus of the fourth round of RCS will be bringing connectivity to priority areas like North East India, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, hilly states in others parts of the country, and islands.
• UDAN 3.0 is under process at present. Till now, only 232 routes across 43 cities and towns of the 688 routes awarded to connect 137 small cities under the RCS scheme remains operational.
• UDAN (first phase) scheme had two components. The first component was to develop new airports and enhance the existing regional airports to increase the number of operational airports for scheduled civilian flights.
• The second component was to add several hundred financially-viable, capped-airfare, new regional flight routes to connect more than 100 underserved and unserved airports in smaller towns with each other as well as with well served airports in bigger cities by using “Viability Gap Funding” (VGF) where needed.

Issues and Challenges

• Shorter airport runways in many Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities
• Short take-offs and landings
• Balance sheet of Indian airlines is severely affected due to volatility of external factors
• Long gestation period to turn a green field airport into a viable and self sustaining airport.
• Managing air trafficin backdrop of stagnant number of runways in high traffic airports

Ways to Improve

• Fast track the new International Air Connectivity Scheme (also termed International UDAN) which proposes to connect India’s smaller cities directly to key foreign destinations. This will address the issue of connectivity and promote development of smaller cities through tourism and investment and implementation of UDAN 4 effectively. Shift from the current point-to-point service to a hub and spoke design that connects large airports with new UDAN routes to ensure sustained passenger traffic throughout the year.