By Aritra Banerjee
Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya M. Scindia in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today, highlighted the following information:
“The Krishi Udan Scheme 2.0 was announced on 27 October 2021, enhancing the existing provisions, mainly focusing on transporting perishable food products from the hilly areas, North-Eastern States and tribal areas.
“For facilitating and incentivizing movement of agri-produce by air transportation Airports Authority of India (AAI) provides a complete waiver of Landing, Parking, Terminal Navigational Landing Charges (TNLC) and Route Navigation Facility Charges (RNFC) for Indian freighters and P2C (Passenger-to-Cargo) Aircraft primarily around 25 airports are focusing on North Eastern, Hilly and Tribal region and 28 airports in the other areas.”
“Krishi Udan Scheme is a convergence scheme where eight Ministries/Departments namely Ministry of Civil Aviation, Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Development of North-eastern Region (DoNER) would leverage their existing schemes to strengthen the logistics for transportation of Agri-produce.
“There is no specific budget for Krishi Udan under the Scheme. 29 States are covered under the Krishi Udan 2.0 Scheme, namely, Andaman & Nicobar, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Kerala, Ladakh, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.
“All the airports in the NER States, including Assam, are covered under the Scheme. The main objective of the Krishi Udan Scheme 2.0 is to increase the share of air carriage in the modal mix for transportation of Agri-produce, which includes horticulture, fishery, livestock and processed products.”
“The Scheme aims to ensure seamless, cost-effective, time-bound air transportation and associated logistics for all Agri-produce originating, especially from the North East (including Assam), hilly and tribal regions of the country,” the MoCA press release issued on the Lok Sabha response concluded.
