Yunus Dar

The civil aviation ministry recently announced the results of its much awaited third round of bidding for its flagship regional air connectivity scheme UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik), on 25 January 2019. The bidding, which the government claimed was the largest so far, is including new tourist routes, seaplanes for connecting water aerodromes, besides bringing in several routes in the North-East region under the ambit of UDAN.

Minister for Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu announcing results at the UDAAN-3 bidding event

According to a government press release, the response to the UDAN 3 bidding was ‘enthusiastic,’ and Airports Authority of India (AAI), the implementing agency of UDAN, received 111 initial proposals and 17 counter proposals from 15 bidders covering more than 350 routes. Besides, the proposals connecting 13 water aerodromes and more than 40 tourism routes were also received as part of the bidding process. The civil aviation ministry also announced that SpiceJet would operate international flights under the scheme from Guwahati to Dhaka and Bangkok.

Civil aviation minister Suresh Prabhu, announcing the awards under UDAN 3, said as many as 69.30 lakh seats would be added on an annual basis across the 235 routes, out of which, more than 1 lakh seats would be through seaplanes. This is in addition to the number of seats created under UDAN 1 (13 lakh) and UDAN 2 (29 lakh). The Viability Gap Funding (VGF) requirements, which are shared by the ministry and the states concerned, for 69.30 lakh seats under the latest round are estimated to be around Rs 1,167 crore.

The ministry of civil aviation has approved a total of 73 propos