Government Spends ₹900 Crore on 15 Non-Operational UDAN Regional Airports

The Indian government has spent nearly ₹900.00 crore maintaining 15 regional airports that currently have no scheduled flight operations under the UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) connectivity scheme. These airports continue to incur substantial maintenance expenses while their flights remain suspended, highlighting significant challenges in regional aviation connectivity.

Financial Impact and Investment Overview

The total maintenance expenditure on these non-operational facilities amounts to ₹878.92 crore over eight years from 2017, according to documents submitted by the civil aviation ministry to Parliament. This represents a significant portion of the government's overall investment in regional connectivity.

The civil aviation ministry has disbursed over ₹4,300.00 crore in subsidies to help keep regional routes running, yet these hinterland airports continue to face operational challenges that expose the gap between policy aspirations and ground reality.

Geographic Distribution of Affected Airports

Uttar Pradesh bears the highest impact with six of the 15 temporarily non-operational airports. Seven of these facilities were inaugurated only in 2024, indicating immediate operational challenges.

Maintenance Costs by Airport

The maintenance expenses vary significantly across different airports, reflecting their size and infrastructure requirements.

The Pakyong airport in Sikkim, built at a cost of ₹605.00 crore, has incurred the highest maintenance expenditure of ₹178.75 crore. In contrast, Pathankot remains the least expensive non-operational site, costing ₹5.18 crore in upkeep.

Operational Challenges and Industry Perspective

Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol informed the Rajya Sabha on December 1, 2025, that these airports are temporarily non-operational due to various factors including:

• Completion of three-year VGF (Viability Gap Funding) tenure
• Poor visibility conditions at VFR (Visual Flight Rules) airports
• Daytime runway closures
• Shortage of aircraft and leasing issues
• Low passenger load factors
• Temporary discontinuation by airline operators

Aviation consultant Mark D. Martin notes that subsidy-based schemes like UDAN generally face viability issues in aviation. Commercial sustainability becomes challenging when demand is insufficient, and once the three-year subsidy period ends, many flight operations become unviable due to high ticket prices.

UDAN Scheme Performance

Despite these challenges, the Regional Connectivity Scheme has achieved partial success. Under UDAN, there are 93 airports in smaller towns and cities, of which 78 remain operational. The scheme, launched in October 2016 with its first flight in April 2017, continues to connect hundreds of thousands of passengers from smaller towns to major cities.

For the current winter schedule (October 2025 to March 2026), the civil aviation ministry reported 126 operational airports in India, with new operations proposed at Amravati, Hissar, Purnea, and Rupsi airports by various scheduled airlines.