4th round of UDAN launched by civil aviation ministry; focus on hilly states
KI Singh/ royalpatiala.in/ Chandigarh
Following the three successful rounds of bidding, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has launched the 4th round of Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS)- UdeDeshKaAamNagrik( UDAN) to further enhance the connectivity to remote and regional areas of the country. Focus of this round would be the priority areas like North Eastern Region (NER), Hilly States, J&K, Ladakh and Islands.
The Selected Airline Operator (SAO) would be allowed to change the frequency of flight operation, during the tenure of flight operation of the given route, provided that the total scheduled flight operation submitted as part of the Technical Proposal is conformed and adhered to within a period of one year. The operation of helicopter and sea plane would be allowed under this round.
Process of bidding
AAI invites interested bidders/airline operators to take part in the bidding process. The bidding document has been uploaded on to the portal (https://www.aai.aero/en/rcsudan/rcs-udan-4.0) or website: https://www.mstcecommerce.com/eprochome/rcs/index.jsp. The bidders are encouraged to go through the document and submit the queries, if any by 11/12/2019. The timelines of the entire bidding process has been provided in the Notice of Commencement of 4th Round of Bidding for ‘Selection Process for Selected Airline Operator under Regional Connectivity Scheme-UDAN Version 4.0, November, 2019, uploaded at the AAI / MSTC website, the link for which is provided above.
Progress of UDAN 1, 2 and 3
In the last three years MoCA has successfully completed three rounds of bidding under the Scheme and awarded about 700 routes.
The table on progress of RCS UDAN is provided below (as on 31st of October, 2019):
| Scheme | Valid RCS Route / Awarded | RCS Airports (including Heliports and Water Aerodromes) | RCS routes operationalized |
| UDAN-1 | 56 | 43 (31 unserved, 12 undeserved) | 54 |
| UDAN-2 | 297 | 30 Airports (25 unserved, 5 underserved) + 31 Heliports | 104 |
| UDAN-3 (including 3.1) | 335 | 33 airports (20 unserved, 3 underserved, 10 water aerodromes) | 74 |
| UDAN (Total) | 688 | 106 Airports+ 31 Heliports | 232 |
Efforts are made to develop the airports and operationalize the pending routes. Many of these routes will be operationalized during the winter schedule 2019.
MoCA aims to operationalize 1000 routes and more than 100 airports in the next five years. This would be achieved by focusing on operationalizing routes in Priority Areas. AAI would focus on developing no-frills airport in the future and routes connecting such airports would be prioritized for award of VGF. The market would be incentivized to develop short haul routes only, providing connectivity to nearby airports
