Published on : Tuesday, March 12, 2019
In 2016, the government of India launched UDAN (ude desh ka aam nagrik) scheme to make air travel affordable for people with the help of subsidized ticket prices and air connectivity to smaller towns.
The scheme is aimed at connecting major cities with tier-II and tier-III cities at a price of Rs. 2,500 per one-hour flight.
The scheme, if extended to J&K, can be a boon to the state’s hospitality sector and ensure cheap airfares to passengers travelling to and from the Srinagar airport.
Presently, the J&K tourism sector is bearing the brunt of very high airfares, wherein a ticket in the Srinagar-Delhi sector costs Rs. 8,000 to Rs. 10,000 on an average. These fares skyrocket to Rs. 14000 to Rs. 20,000 per-ticket when the Srinagar-Jammu highway, which is the only surface link of Kashmir with rest of the world gets closed.
Hence, the Valley’s tourism players have urged the central government to bring Srinagar as a destination under the UDAN scheme so that the airfares to the sector are reduced a great deal. However, there has not been a positive response from the union aviation ministry as yet.