India at 75: How aviation sector took wings with UDAN

NEW DELHI: Last year, India became the third largest domestic aviation market in the world.

With domestic flyers on the rise and the Covid pandemic easing, India's civil aviation market is expected to grow at a brisk pace in the next few years with an estimated annual traffic of 40 crore in 2023-24.

As India celebrates its 75th Independence Day, the government has released data showing how passenger traffic at airports have increased in the country, witnessing a massive 30-fold growth in four decades.



Data shows that cargo handling at airports have seen a 4-fold increase in just the last two decades.



The government has been investing heavily in the aviation sector by increasing the number of airports from 74 before 2014 to over 140 till 2021.

With a mammoth Rs 93,000 crore capex pipeline, India will witness a bout of both greenfield and brownfield airports in the next 2-3 years.

The government has shifted its focus on remote cities of India under its flagship UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) scheme. Since 2017, over 1.01 crore people have travelled by air – most for the first time in their lives - in UDAN flights.

The government said that 65 airports, 8 heliports and 2 water aerodromes have been operationalised under UDAN in the last 5 years.

UDAN is a joint venture between the government of India and the private sector and aims to provide affordable air travel to the masses.

The scheme will provide air travel to underserved and remote parts of the country. The first phase of the scheme will cover the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Karnataka.