India will revive 50 additional airports, heliports, water aerodromes and advanced landing zones for improving regional air connectivity, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Wednesday

The announcement is part of a target to operationalise 1,000 UDAN routes during the currency of the scheme.

“Fifty additional airports, heliports, water aerodromes and advance landing grounds will be revived for improving regional air connectivity,” Sitharaman said

Revival and making operational advanced landing grounds for drones have also been announced.

The Economic Survey released on Tuesday said “air travel (in India) has rebounded” with passenger and cargo movement being close to pre-Covid levels. The total number of passengers carried in December 2022 was 1.50 lakh, up 1.06 per cent of the pre-Covid levels (average of April 2019 to February 2020).

Cargo tonnage till November stood at 2.5 lakh mt which is 89 per cent of the pre-Covid levels.

Budgetary Allocation

Budgetary outlay to the Ministry of Civil Aviation for FY24 stood at ₹3113.36 crore, with a major portion of over ₹1,244 crore being for the flagship Regional Connectivity Scheme, UDAN.

Allocation for the flagship scheme increased from ₹600 .71 crore as per the FY23 Budgetary Estimates and was revised upwards to ₹1,079 crore.

Spending under UDAN was around ₹970 crore in FY22.

Around ₹130 crore is the Budgetary allocation towards medical benefits of retired Air India employees this year; which was provided for at ₹165 crore in Budget FY23 (revised estimates of ₹125 crore).

Interestingly, overall outlay for the Ministry dipped by 70 per cent over FY23 (when it was at ₹10,000 crore), since a major expense of ₹9,259 crore – that went towards AI Asset Holdings Ltd for servicing the loans transferred to the special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the financial restructuring of Air India – has now been adjusted for.

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