# “Under UDAN, airfare for an hour’s journey (approximately 500 km) on a fixed-wing aircraft is capped at Rs. 2,500 only for the 50 per cent seats of the craft. Booking is based on the First-Cum-First-Served basis,” said Sinha.
Ashis Sinha
Bokaro : ‘Parasnath’ the most important pilgrimage centre for Jains will soon to get air links. The government is planning to start chopper services under the regional air connectivity scheme.
“We have a plan to launch helicopter services under the regional connectivity services (RCS) of UDAN very shortly,” said Jaint Sinha the Union minister of state for civil aviation.
In a bid to encourage helicopter operations last year Government had proposed that all seats up to 13 passenger seats for helicopters will be considered as RCS seats and will be covered under VGF. For fixed-wing aircraft to qualify under RCS, the government had said that at least nine seats have to be priced at an all-inclusive fare of 2,500 rupees.
Sinha today rushed at Bokaro to lay the foundation stone for the development of Bokaro airport under UDAN. Talking to the media persons Sinha said, air connectivity plays a vital role in the economic development of an area, a state and a country. “We are on move; very soon all important cities would be connected through air services under UDAN,” he added.
Under the RCS-UDAN, more airports of Jharkhand like Jamshedpur, Bokaro, Deoghar, Dumka would get air connectivity under UDAN-2 while Dhalbhumgarh, Hazaribag, Daltanganj, Giridih/Dhanbad are likely to be connected with air network in UDAN-3, Sinha said.
More than 30 airports have been made operational in past four years led be BJP government and India saw a highest domestic passenger growth during the period. Now, about 13 crore passengers are travelling through the air which was earlier 6 crore in 2014, he said.
UDAN is PM Modi’s flagship programme, aims that Hawaii chappal wale log bhi hawaijahaz ke sair kar saken, (people in rubber slippers should also fly), he said.
This scheme, aimed at stimulating regional connectivity through a market-based mechanism. “Under the scheme, airfare for an hour’s journey (approximately 500 km) on a fixed wing aircraft is capped at Rs. 2,500 only for the 50 per cent seats of the craft. Booking is based on the First-Cum-First-Served basis,” said Sinha.
