{"id":226895,"date":"2023-02-16T20:32:40","date_gmt":"2023-02-16T15:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=226895"},"modified":"2023-02-20T12:50:43","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T07:20:43","slug":"flying-high-into-amrit-kaal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/flying-high-into-amrit-kaal\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying high into Amrit Kaal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>&#8211; The post is based on the article <strong>\u201cFlying high into Amrit Kaal\u201d <\/strong>published in<strong> The Indian Express <\/strong>on <strong>16th February 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: <\/strong>GS3- Infrastructure<\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>&#8211; Air connectivity<\/p>\n<p><strong>News<\/strong>&#8211; India&#8217;s civil aviation policy is bearing fruit. It is set to reach new heights<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the status of the civil aviation industry in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>India is the <strong>third largest domestic civil aviation market<\/strong> in the world after China and the US. Domestic passengers more than doubled from 60 million in 2014 to 143 million in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>There has also been a <strong>significant increase in international air passengers<\/strong> \u2014 from 23 million to 35 million.<\/p>\n<p>Indian flight operators have a <strong>fleet size of approximately 750 aircraft<\/strong>. The fleet size is expected to increase rapidly.<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s civil aviation sector\u00a0 has also provided <strong>employment opportunities<\/strong> for engineers, trained technicians and airline service staff.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the UDAN scheme and its achievements?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In 2017, the Government of India started a <strong>Regional Connectivity Scheme called UDAN<\/strong> to make flight operations to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities <strong>commercially viable<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It approved a budget for the revival of existing unserved and underserved airports and airstrips through the Regional Connectivity Scheme.<\/p>\n<p>Today, approximately 475 UDAN routes have been operationalised.<\/p>\n<p>Since its inception, <strong>over 1.14 crore passengers<\/strong> have travelled in more than 2.16 Lakh UDAN flights. Rs 2,300 crore has been paid to selected airlines by the government as a part of the viability gap funding.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are other steps taken by the government under civil aviation policy?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>MRO sector<\/strong>&#8211; The growth in the country\u2019s fleet size is positively correlated with the growth in MRO-related work.<\/p>\n<p>The market size of the MRO sector in India stood at <strong>around $2 billion<\/strong>. It is catering to 15% of our domestic MRO work.<\/p>\n<p>The government issued <strong>new MRO Guidelines<\/strong> to encourage MRO organisations and OEMs to set up workshops in India.<\/p>\n<p>Many steps taken towards making India a global hub of MRO. It includes <strong>100% FDI permitted via automatic route<\/strong>,<strong> a liberalised policy for borrowing and lending<\/strong> in foreign currency and Indian currency and <strong>reduction of GST<\/strong> from 18% to 5% with full Input Tax Credit.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Manpower<\/strong>&#8211; <strong>1165 commercial pilot licences<\/strong> were issued in 2022. This is the largest number of licences over the last decade.<\/p>\n<p>The need for pilots has also led to an increase in <strong>Flight Training organisations<\/strong>. Currently, India has 35 approved FTOs with 53 bases and an additional 10 are on the anvil.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, the number of Air Traffic Controllers has increased from a little over 2,000 in 2012 to close to 4,000 in 2022.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Drones<\/strong>&#8211; Last year, the government issued guidelines for <strong>Production Linked Incentives<\/strong>\u00a0 for drones with an outlay of Rs 120 crore over three years. There has been a <strong>massive liberalisation of the drone policy<\/strong> under which 25 forms have been reduced to just five.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Agriculture sector<\/strong>&#8211; Civil aviation policy has contributed to agriculture also. The <strong>Krishi Udan Scheme<\/strong> is focused on <strong>transporting perishable food products<\/strong> of farmers from the hilly areas, north-eastern states and tribal areas.<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s civil aviation ministry has also been instrumental in <strong>rescuing Indians and foreign nationals<\/strong> during emergencies.<\/p>\n<p>As a part of the <strong>Vande Bharat Mission<\/strong>, India facilitated the travel of 1.83 crore passengers during the various COVID-19 waves. <strong>Operation Ganga<\/strong> rescued 22,500 Indian students from Ukraine during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tourism sector<\/strong>&#8211; The <strong>synergy between tourism and civil aviation<\/strong> in propagating India\u2019s tourism potential is well-known. The Ministry of Tourism also funds more than 50 routes and has approved another 10 routes under the RCS-UDAN Scheme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source&#8211; The post is based on the article \u201cFlying high into Amrit Kaal\u201d published in The Indian Express on 16th February 2023. Syllabus: GS3- Infrastructure Relevance&#8211; Air connectivity News&#8211; India&#8217;s civil aviation policy is bearing fruit. It is set to reach new heights What is the status of the civil aviation industry in India? India&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/flying-high-into-amrit-kaal\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Flying high into Amrit Kaal<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10500],"class_list":["post-226895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704652044},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}