Only half of UDAN routes operational, Covid-19 to hit scheme further: ICRA
Only 47 per cent of the awarded routes have been operationalised
under the government's regional air connectivity scheme and the second wave of
Covid-19 pandemic will impact the scheme further, rating agency ICRA said in its
report on Tuesday.
The civil aviation ministry launched the UDAN ( Ude Desh Ka Aam
Nagrik) scheme in 2016 to connect unserved and underserved airports. The first
flight under the scheme took off in April 2017.
The number of new RCS routes which started operations increased at
a healthy pace and stood at 102 and 120 routes in FY19 and FY20, respectively,
but have declined to 77 in FY21 due to the Coronavirus (Covid-19)
pandemic, ICRA said.
Only 39 per cent of unserved and underserved airports have been
operationalised, it said.
The scheme is funded through a Rs 50 levy on flight tickets on major
routes. The levy contributes to 80 per cent of viability gap funding provided
to the airlines and the balance 20 per cent is provided by state governments.
Shubham Jain, SVP & group head, Corporate Ratings, ICRA, said,
“The slow progress of UDAN implementation is attributable to delayed
upgradation of infrastructure and readiness of airports, due to lack of
adequate right of way (including insufficient runway lengths) at some of the
RCS airports and delays in securing necessary regulatory approvals. Low demand
on few routes awarded, adverse and unpredictable weather conditions leads to
inconsistent operations and have also resulted in closure of operations by some
airlines in a few cases. The second wave of the pandemic, which started from
mid of March 2021 would further impact the UDAN scheme going forward with
aviation being one of the worst-hit infrastructure sectors.”
The civil aviation ministry has set a target of operationalising
as many as 100 unserved and underserved airports and starting at least 1,000
RCS routes by 2024 (of this, 52 unserved and underserved airports and 357
routes are operationalised as on May 31, 2021). To improvise the RCS network
and achieve its target of developing 100 RCS airports by 2024, the Airport
Authority of India decided to bid out 392 routes under UDAN 4.1
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