12 routes under UDAN scheme became functional recently, Durgapur airport latest entrant

New Delhi: The Civil Aviation Ministry has informed that 12 routes under UdeDesh ka AamNaagrik (UDAN) scheme have become functional recently with Durgapur airport being the latest entrant.

This takes the total operational routes under UDAN to 186 (including 8 Tourism RCS routes) of the total 706 sanctioned Routes.Durgapur airport is the 40th airport to become functional under the scheme, the Civil Aviation Ministry said.

The 12 routes with daily flight operations that commenced are:  Kolkata – Allahabad, Allahabad- Kolkata, Allahabad-Raipur, Raipur-Allahabad , Gwalior- Bangalore, Bangalore-Gwalior, Kolkata-Gwalior, Gwalior- Kolkata, Mumbai– Belgaum, Belgaum-Mumbai, Mumbai- Durgapur and Durgapur-Mumbai.

It may be recalled that the Ministry of Civil Aviation had launched Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) in October 10 2016 to stimulate regional air connectivity and making air travel affordable to the masses.  

Since then three round of biddings have been completed. The first RCS-UDAN flight was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 27 2017 at Shimla.

106 RCS Airports/Water aerodromes (76 Unserved, 20 Underserved & 10 Waterdromes) and 31 heliports have been identified for commencement of RCS flight connecting small cities in India.  

706 RCS routes including 46 Tourism RCS routes have been awarded to 19 selected Airline operators under UDAN. RCS flights commenced from 40 RCS (23 unserved and17 underserved) Airports.