Will the Centre invite bids under the third round of the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) or wait till all the routes awarded under the first two rounds are fully operational?

Or, will the Centre implement a Tourism Ministry proposal to connect places of interest with flights and consider that Round Three of RCS?

“The Tourism Ministry has indicated that it will provide the Viability Gap Funds required to operate such flights,” said a Civil Aviation Ministry official. “So launching such flights will not lead to any financial burden on existing flyers. We will have to see whether we call the Tourism Ministry proposal Round Three of the RCS.”

At the moment, 16 of the 31 unserved airports awarded under the RCS scheme UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) are operational. The Centre hopes the balance 15 will become operational by the end of July. (An unserved airport is one where there are no flight operations.)

Launching the scheme in 2016, the Centre had indicated it planned to invite bids every six months from parties interested in launching flights. The second round of bids was invited in January this year, so the third round ought to be invited in July.

“There is a lot of interest among States to have RCS and tremendous pressure to connect more airports. However, a call is yet to be taken on whether bids should be invited for linking more cities under the scheme or whether we wait till all the routes awarded under RCS I and II are fully operation,” the official said.

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