UDAN has improved air connectivity despite some failures
Just a few days ago, the Centre claimed that 100 airports would be developed by 2024 under the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) UDAN infrastructure scheme. This is in addition to the modernisation and upgrade work being undertaken at Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, and Mangaluru airports to make them more contemporary.
In fact, modernisation is a continuous process, which depends on factors like the availability of land, commercial viability, socio-economic considerations, traffic demand from the people of that region, and then willingness of the airlines to operate to and from such airports.
Without doubt, the focus of the Government on infrastructure deserves to be appreciated. Budget 2023 has also laid a lot of emphasis on it, with the capital expenditure outlay being increased significantly for 2023-24 to whooping Rs 10 lakh crore over Rs 7.28 lakh crore in 2022-23, which will further act as a driver of growth and jobs. The Airports Authority of India and other airport operators have targeted capital outlay of approximately Rs 98,000 crore in the sector across the country by 2025 for construction of greenfield airports and new terminals, expansion and modernisation of existing terminals and strengthening of runways among other activities.
Continuous efforts of the Government have paid rich dividends, and the domestic air traffic has almost reached the pre-Covid level. It is the thumping success of the RCS UDAN, launched in 2016 to stimulate regional air connectivity and make air travel affordable for the masses, that has made the Ministry of Civil Aviation even more ambitious to connect the country through airways.
However, unlike its much publicised plan to provide connectivity to un-served and underserved airports of the country through revival of the existing airstrips and airports, it is yet to make substantial progress with regard to a number of such airports in some very prospective regions like Purnia in Bihar. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar laments the delay in the construction of a civil enclave at the airport in the city, which was supposed to have been made much before Darbhanga. Here, the blame-game intensifies with Kumar putting the blame on the Union Government and vice-versa.
While Sanjay Jha, a close confidante of Kumar and Cabinet Minister in the state, said the state Government has given its commitment for linking the road from the proposed civil enclave to national highway even though work has not been started, senior leader of the BJP and former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi accused the state Government of not cooperating, adding that the AAI had sought 52.1 acres of land from the northern side of the runway, which has not been met, while the land was acquired from the southern side for the purpose.
The state Government also assured to build a road to link the acquired land to the nearest national highway. It is also interesting to note here that the runway at the Indian Air Force airport in Purnia is 11,000X150 feet, which is almost similar to that of a few top cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad. Flight services had also started in 2012 between Purnia and Patna and Purnia and Kolkata, but were discontinued the very next year.
Similar is the case with a number of other un-served and underserved airports in various parts of the country. Despite such fights, bitter word wars in some cases, and a few failures on some fronts, the UDAN scheme has been successful to a great extent. The selection of routes and airlines is fair. The scheme has also been able to provide a fair amount of air connectivity to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities at affordable airfares and has transformed the way travelling was done earlier.
(The author is a senior journalist)