Patna, April 3: The Centre has left out Bihar while selecting the list of airports under Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik (UDAN) scheme despite Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) naming Bhagalpur and Madhubani as potential airports in its list announced in January this year.
On March 30 this year, the list released by the Union civil aviation ministry selected 45 unserved and under-served airports across the country to be connected under the scheme in which no cities from Bihar found a place.
The FICCI-KPMG report of January 2017 on regional connectivity scheme or UDAN has listed 44 airports across the country, which it said has the potential to execute operations under the scheme.
From Bihar, Bhagalpur and Madhubani were cited in the list. The list was prepared based on geographical, operational and commercial parameters of the airports, which the apex industry body felt had potential to be part of the scheme.
The central government through the National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP)-2016 launched the UDAN scheme in October 2016 to make air travel cheaper.
Under the scheme, the government aims to provide air travel at Rs 2,500 per hour of flight to tier-2 and tier-3 cities. While the first flight under the scheme - UDAN is expected to start next month, within 4-6 months the new regional flights will become operational. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is the implementing agency for UDAN.
The AAI teams had in 2016 visited Bhagalpur during which it had acknowledged that commercial air-services through small aircraft from Bhagalpur airport were feasible. However, the AAI had then suggested increasing the length of the runway (airstrip) from the current 3,300 feet to 4,000 feet to enable flight operations.
The Madhubani airport, which too has a shorter runway of 3,200 feet, was decided to be upgraded to 4,000 feet before operations begin there.
In its report the FICCI even envisaged a few potential destinations from Bhagalpur and Madhubani.
The probable destinations proposed by the FICCI from Bhagalpur were Patna (197km), Calcutta (323km), Gaya (206km), Ranchi (269km), Guwahati (488km), Varanasi (405km), Lucknow (628km), Bhubaneswar (563km), while from Madhubani it was Patna (127km), Kolkata (475km), Gaya (204km), Varanasi (212km), Ranchi (294km) and Guwahati (565km).
A private airline official said: "Though the government is trying to build the wherewithal, it will take some time. One of the most-important things is the right size of the aircraft that you need. Many of the airports (identified for the RCS) do not have big runways, so they can't take regular aircraft. We need to induct smaller aircraft for shorter runways for short takeoffs and landings. Such aircraft are not available in abundance."
He added that profits on such routes are tough. "Who will bid for the routes because underserved or not-served routes are not profitable? This was only the first round of bidding since the policy was cleared last year. The model will mature and evolve over time," the official added.
Patna airport director Rajendra Singh Lahouria said: "We hope in the next round of bidding which would commence shortly, cities from Bihar would make it too to the list."
Patna airport director Rajendra Singh Lahouria, however, said it is the state government that has to take the initiative.
"The initiation process should come from the Bihar government. Either they should write to us (AAI) on the issue to get a city selected under the scheme, or they can write directly to the Union civil aviation ministry. Nothing of that sort happened in the case."
Lahouria admitted that though Bhagalpur has a shorter runway, the airstrip at Darbhanga was ideal for the Udan scheme.
