Tag Archives: Regional Connectivity Scheme

The tourism and hospitality sectors had to listen intently to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s Union Budget 2018 speech for a mention, which was made precisely three times. The Finance Minister proposed to develop 10 prominent tourist sites into ‘Iconic Tourism destinations’ by following a holistic approach involving infrastructure and skill development, development of technology, attracting private investment, branding and marketing. “To preserve and revitalise soul of the heritage cities in India, National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) has been taken up in a major way,” the minister said. In addition, to enhance visitor experience, tourist amenities at 100 Adarsh monuments of the Archaeological Survey of India will be upgraded. For promoting tourism and emergency medical care, Government will make necessary framework for encouraging investment in sea plane activities, Jaitley mentioned. The Minister noted that in the last three years, the domestic air passenger traffic grew at 18 per cent per annum and airline companies placed orders for more than 900 aircraft. Regional Connectivity Scheme of UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) initiated by the Government last year shall connect 56 unserved airports and 31 unserved helipads across the country, he said, adding that operations have already started at 16 such airports. “We propose to expand our airport capacity more than five times to handle a billion trips a year under a new initiative – NABH Nirman,” he said. For the Railways sector, “We are in a process of eliminating unmanned railway crossings. All railway stations having more than 25,000 footfall will have escalators. We are also working to provide Wi-Fi and CCTV Cameras on all trains and stations,” Jaitley said. Redevelopment of 600 major railway stations has been …

PATA India will be conducting its 6th Update & Outlook Meeting on November 15, 2017 at The Claridges, New Delhi. Tourism Secretary Rashmi Verma will preside over the meeting. G. K. Chaukiyal, Executive Director, Airport Authority of India, will also give an overview of Regional Connectivity Scheme, near and medium term connectivity plan and how it will support tourism. One of the objectives of this initiative is to take aviation to the hinterland and to the doorstep of the common man. This will contribute towards developing tourism infrastructure and open new vistas for tourism as well.

SpiceJet, Alliance Air, and three other airlines have emerged winner in the first round of bidding and 43 airports in India are set to get flights under the Regional Connectivity Scheme, revealed Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Civil Aviation Minister, Govt. of India. Apart from SpiceJet and Alliance Air, the other three airlines awaiting license include Air Deccan, Air Odisha and Turbo Megha. Airports Authority of India (AAI), the implementing agency, will issue Letter of Awards for 27 proposals received under RCS-UDAN. A total of 13 unserved airports will get flights under the scheme, and the total viability gap funding that the government will provide will be around Rs. 200 crore. Raju also said that the total seats on these routes will be around 13 lakh and the scheme will be active in the next 4-6 months.

To give a boost to the Civil Aviation Operators, the Government of Delhi has proposed to reduce the VAT rate to 1 per cent from existing 25 per cent on their purchases of Air Turbine Fuel (ATF) in Delhi. Revealing this in Budget for 2017-18, Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said those who have opted to operate under Regional Connectivity Scheme i.e. RCS (Udan) and will ply the fights on RCS routes (involving Delhi) between an identified pair of origin and destination airports/helipads can benefit from this tax cut.

Air fares will be capped at Rs 2,500 for one-hour flights on unserved and under-served routes and flyers will have to shell out more as air fares are likely to increase as per the government’s ambitious Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS). The RCS, unveiled on Nov 11, was mooted in the New Civil Aviation Policy as part of the government’s plan to serve smaller cities, has been put up for stakeholders’ consultations including state governments, airlines and airport operators. It will target 90 airports. The stakeholders have been given three weeks time to submit their comments and suggestions on the draft scheme, which is expected to be finalised by August. Also as part of the proposed scheme, a new category of airlines, scheduled commuter airlines, is being created where a new operator may be allowed to start operations with just one plane. Under the proposed scheme, the government would be providing Viability Gap Funding (VGF) – which would be financed through Regional Connectivity Fund (RCF). Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju while unveiling the draft policy said RCF would be created for funding RCS “through levy on certain flights.” In this regard, the government would be charging a levy in the form of per domestic departure from the airlines on certain routes, a move which is expected to push the airfares marginally higher. The Ministry would contribute 80 per cent of the VGF, while respective state governments would chip in with the remaining 20 per cent to the fund which will have a corpus of Rs 500 crore each year. When asked how much levy is likely to be charged, Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey said, “We are giving …