A senior government official has said that performance of airlines and progress in starting flights on the routes won in the first round of bidding under the regional connectivity scheme will now be taken into consideration before awarding them more routes. Second round of bidding under the scheme UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) is under progress and has received as many as 141 initial proposals from 17 players.
Civil Aviation Secretary RN Choubey said performance of airlines that have won routes in the first round would be taken into account while deciding on award of routes in the second round. “If we find that their (airlines) progress is not up to the mark, then we will not rush into awarding any route in the second round of bidding if they have won. We would like to link their performance and progress in the first bidding round to any route that they may have won in the second round of bidding,” he said. Choubey also stressed that performance of such airlines would be monitored. Five airlines, including SpiceJet won bids to operate on 128 routes connecting 70 airports in the first round of RCS bidding. Air Odisha Aviation got maximum routes- 50, followed by Air Deccan, 34, and Turbo Megha Airways, 18. The Air India subsidiary Airline Allied Services bagged 15 routes, while SpiceJet won bids for 11 routes.
Air Deccan and Air Odisha are, however, yet to start operations on account of different factors. Choubey said they are expected to commence significant part of their operations by December 15. Regarding collection of RCS levy, he said the paper work related to Goods and Services Tax is under progress. “Since the GST has come, there are some exemptions we have to seek. The paper work has already started. We are working on a certain manner of ensuring that there is no reduction in availability of funds (for RCS) on account of GST. The exact process is being discussed with the Department of Revenue,” he said. Levy collections are parked in a trust set up under the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
