Air Infra: Three Airports Likely to Take Wing under UDAN-4 in Odisha

Bhubaneswar: Giving a major air connectivity boost in the State, the Centre has decided to include three airports in Odisha under UDAN (Ude desh ka aam nagrik)-4.

The three airports of the state to be included under the UDAN-4 are Jeypore (Koraput), Rourkela (Sundargarh) and Utkela (Kalahandi).

According to sources, this was decided at a meeting between the Union Civil Aviation Secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola and the Chief Secretary of Odisha, Asit Tripathy in New Delhi on Friday.

Besides making travel affordable and accessible to all, the UDAN scheme aims to boost inclusive national economic development, development of air transport infrastructure in all regions and job growth.

In the last three years, the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation completed three rounds of bidding under the scheme in the last three years and awarded around 700 routes, many of which will be operationalized during the winter schedule 2019.

The Ministry is working to develop more airports and operationalize the pending routes. Overall, the Civil Aviation Ministry aims to operationalize around 1000 routes and develop more than 100 airports in the next five years.

The Ministry aims to achieve this by focusing on operationalizing routes in the priority areas. The Aviation Ministry aims to develop short-haul routes. The Airport Authority of India also aims to develop no-frills airport in the future and the routes connecting such airports will be prioritized for awarding the Viability Gap Funding.