UDAN Completes 10 Years, Modified UDAN Opens Next Phase

The Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), better known to travellers as UDAN or Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik, has turned ten. A backgrounder issued on 20 October 2026 traced the decade of a scheme notified on 21 October 2016, whose promise came out of the National Civil Aviation Policy of 2016: air travel that small towns could afford and airlines could still run at a profit.

The decade in figures

The first UDAN service flew between Shimla and Delhi in April 2017. Since then the scheme has put 687 regional routes into service and brought 95 aerodromes into operation, among them 17 heliports and two water aerodromes. Airlines have flown more than 3.68 lakh services under it and carried 1.72 crore passengers. Viability Gap Funding of Rs 5091.23 crore had been released up to 15 October 2026. Working airports in the country have climbed from 74 in 2014 to 166, and India now stands as the third-largest domestic aviation market in the world. Employment in the sector has grown from about 3 million in 2014 to nearly 7.7 million in 2026, with a projection of 25 million by 2040.

The North East

Hilly ground had long left the north-eastern states thinly connected by air. Ninety priority routes have been opened there under the scheme. Of the 52 aerodromes, heliports and water aerodromes identified in the region, 12 are working.

What Modified UDAN carries

The next phase was launched on 4 July 2026 and runs ten years, from FY 2026-27 to FY 2035-36, with an outlay of Rs 28,840 crore. It sets aside Rs 12,159 crore to raise 100 airports from existing unserved airstrips over eight years, roughly Rs 100 crore for each; Rs 2,577 crore for three years of operation and maintenance at about 441 aerodromes; Rs 3,661 crore for 200 modern helipads at some Rs 15 crore apiece; and Rs 10,043 crore of Viability Gap Funding for airlines, tapering from the third year with route exclusivity held to three years. A further Rs 400 crore is proposed for two HAL Dhruv helicopters for Pawan Hans and two HAL Dornier aircraft for Alliance Air, tying the scheme to Atmanirbhar Bharat in civil aviation.

Centre and states together

Twenty-one memorandums of understanding have been signed between the Government, the participating states and union territories, and the Airports Authority of India, giving all three a single framework for picking and developing aviation assets. A Challenge Mode Portal for Aerodrome Development now lets state governments and UT administrations nominate airstrips and helipads of their own choosing.

Four airports that changed a region

Purnea in Bihar, opened in 2025, serves more than ten districts; the run to Kolkata is down to about two hours and to Patna to roughly one, and its runway of close to 2.8 km is the longest in the state, able to take A320 and B737 aircraft. Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh, working since 2021, serves over two lakh people in Lohit district and moves ginger, cardamom and rice as cargo. Deoghar in Jharkhand, open since July 2022, flies over 10 lakh pilgrims a year to Baba Baidyanath Dham and has drawn more than 30 new hotels. Kishangarh in Rajasthan has sent marble to Italy, the UAE and the USA since 2017 and houses the region's only Category 'A' Flying Training Organisation.