UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) – RCS (Regional Connectivity Scheme)

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UDAN – RCS
                             
WHY in news?
 Pathankot gets Operationalized as the 21st airport under UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) – RCS (Regional Connectivity Scheme).

About UDAN:
Udan is a market-based policy intervention that builds on similar programmes in the US, Canada and Australia. It is also consistent with universal service approaches established for other network-based services such as railways and telecom.
  • The objective of the Scheme is to make flying affordable for the masses, to promote tourism, increase employment and promote balanced regional growth. It also intends to put life into un-served and under-served airports.
  • It offers viability gap funding to operators to fly smaller aircraft to such airports with a commitment to price tickets for at least half of the seats at ₹2,500 for an hour-long flight.

Need for schemes like Udan:
  • There are as many as 398 “unserved” airports which have no commercial flights and 18 “under-served” airports host less than seven flights per week.
  • Besides, a major reason for the poor regional air connectivity in India is that airlines do not find it lucrative to operate from small cities. The government has tried to address this concern by an adroit combination of subsidies and fare caps.

Significance of the scheme:
Providing regional air connectivity is an important policy goal for the government. Such services deliver a host of benefits by fulfilling latent consumer demand for convenient travel, making businesses and trade more efficient, unlocking India’s tourism potential, enabling fast medical service and promoting national integration.
Moreover, building connections to tier-2 and tier-3 cities also generates powerful network effects with many regional passengers transferring on to the national aviation network between tier-1cities. The Udan (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) programme is designed to jump start the regional aviation market by improving the profitability of under-developed regional routes. It will strengthen the overall aviation network at a modest market-discovered price.

Sources: pib.

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