By Staff Correspondent
Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) flagship Regional Connectivity Scheme UDAN (Ude Deshka Aam Nagrik) has been selected for Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration 2020 under the category ‘Innovation (General) – Central’.
The Government of India (GOI) has initiated this award to acknowledge, recognise and reward extraordinary and innovative work done by districts and organisations of state/government. This scheme emphasises on good governance, qualitative achievements, and last-mile connectivity rather than only on achievement of quantitative targets. The award consists of a trophy, scroll and an incentive of Rupees 10 lakhs.
MoCA will receive the award on 21 April. A special event is been organised by GOI at Vigyan Bhawan on the occasion of ‘Civil Service Day’ where the representative of the ministry will be facilitated with the award.
What Is UDAN?
Launched in 2016, the UDAN scheme aims to fulfil the aspirations of the common man by following the vision of Ude Deshka Aam Nagrik, with enhanced aviation infrastructure and air connectivity in tier II and III cities. In a span of five years, today 415 UDAN routes connect 66 underserved/unserved airports, including heliports and water aerodromes, and over 92 lakh people have benefited from it. More than 1,79,000 thousand flights have flown under this scheme. UDAN scheme has immensely benefitted several sectors pan-India including the hilly states, North-Eastern Region (NER), and islands
UDAN has a positive impact on the economy of the country and has witnessed an excellent response from industry stakeholders, especially airlines operators and state governments. More than 350 new city pairs are now scheduled to be connected under the scheme, with 200 already connected and are widely spread geographically providing connectivity across the length and breadth of the country as well as ensuring balanced regional growth resulting in economic growth and employment to the local population.
The scheme also led to development of new Green Field Airports such as Pakyong near Gangtok in Sikkim, Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh and Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh. The scheme also led to 5% incremental growth in domestic passenger share of non-metro airports.
MoCA plans and commits to construct 100 new airports by 2024 in India with 1,000 new routes under the UDAN RCS scheme by the year 2026.
Recently, the MoCA tableau was named the best central ministry tableau for Republic Day 2022. The ministry’s tableau showcased RCS – UDAN as its central theme.
