To give a boost to regional air connectivity, the civil aviation ministry has initiated a short-bidding round under its flagship scheme, UDAN, sources told FE.
UDAN 5.3 focuses on those routes whose awards were cancelled by the ministry.
Last year, the ministry cancelled over 500 of the total of 1,300 routes that were awarded under the scheme, as the operators of these routes had not shown any signs of starting services.
Now that 519 of the 750-odd routes have become operational, the new round focuses on the remaining routes.
“The short-bidding provision allows for faster re-auction of non-operational routes. Till now, re-auction has been more time-consuming since the process depended on the commencement of a new bidding phase of the scheme,” the sources said.
Besides, to make these routes more viable, the ministry has worked out a benchmark PLF (passenger load factor) level to make a route eligible for funding.
Furthermore, the time period of the viability gap funding (VGF) has also been extended than the standard three-year period.
The UDAN scheme provides a VGF component to operators who have been selected via a bidding process to operate flights on under-served or unserved routes.
“This version of the scheme also focuses on bringing out exclusive iterations meant for specific aircraft types such as ‘1A’ or ‘Category 1’ and choppers,” sources said.
Aircraft in categories such as ‘1A’ are those that can seat less than nine passengers, while ‘Category 1’ craft can ferry less than 20 passengers per flight.
The 10-year-duration scheme was launched in October 2016 as part of the National Civil Aviation Policy. At present, nearly 150 airports, including eight heliports, have been developed or operationalised under the scheme.
More than 13 million domestic passengers have travelled via services under the scheme.