UDAN has democratised air travel but its financial sustainability remains contested. Critically evaluate the decade of RCS-UDAN and the design changes in Modified UDAN.

RCS-UDAN was launched on 21 October 2016 under the National Civil Aviation Policy 2016. It uses airfare caps and Viability Gap Funding (VGF) to make regional flying affordable [1]. After a decade, its reach is clear, but it has not shown that its routes can survive without subsidy.

Decade of RCS-UDAN: Gains

• Reach: 687 routes and 95 aerodromes have been started, including 17 heliports and 2 water aerodromes. 1.72 crore passengers have flown [1].
• Infrastructure and jobs: operational airports rose from 74 (2014) to 166, and aviation jobs from about 3 million to 7.7 million [1].
• Beyond flyers: Krishi UDAN (2020) flies farm produce out of the NE, hilly and tribal areas [2].

Decade of RCS-UDAN: Concerns

• Route attrition: a Parliamentary Standing Committee (2021) found that fewer than 40% of awarded routes had started [3]. The CAG audited the scheme in Report No. 22 of 2023 [4].
• Subsidy dependence: ₹5,091.23 crore of VGF for 1.72 crore passengers works out to roughly ₹2,960 per passenger, at about 47 passengers per flight (own calculation from [1]). Thin routes stop when the three-year support ends.
• Equity unmeasured: there is no data on flyers' incomes, so the claim that UDAN serves the "aam nagrik" is unproven.
• Idle aerodromes: in the NE, only 12 of 52 identified aerodromes are working [1].

Modified UDAN (FY27–FY36, ₹28,840 crore): Design Changes

• Supply-side shift: ₹12,159 crore for 100 airports from unserved airstrips, ₹3,661 crore for 200 helipads, and ₹2,577 crore for O&M support [5].
• Longer VGF: support lasts up to 5 years and tapers from year 3 [1], as the 2021 committee recommended [3].
• Federalism and Atmanirbharta: 21 Centre–State MoUs, a Challenge Mode portal, and HAL Dhruv/Dornier aircraft for Pawan Hans and Alliance Air [1].

Remaining Gaps

• Route exclusivity stays at 3 years, so rivals can enter while support is tapering [1].
• O&M support ends after 3 years, which leaves running costs to the States [1].
• Challenge Mode may favour States that already have land and money.
• VGF roughly doubles to ₹10,043 crore [5]. Part of it comes from a levy on domestic flights, so passengers on busy routes pay for regional ones [6].

Overall, UDAN has widened access but has not yet shown it can pay its way. Three steps would help: publish how many routes are still flying at 1, 3 and 5 years; link VGF to seats filled; and reserve a Challenge Mode share for NE and hill States. This would advance SDG 9 and Article 38's goal of reducing regional inequality.