The Ministry of Civil Aviation announced that the government had approved in principle the establishment of 21 greenfield airports in India.

The project will strengthen the air infrastructure, improve the affordability of flying and increase the amount of air cargo handling in India.

Increasing greenfield airports coming together with an enhanced flight connectivity mechanism under the Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) scheme will transform the aviation industry.

It will promote air connections to underserved and unserved regions and contribute to more equitable, inclusive growth.

The ministry said the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has checked airfare on some routes to ensure that flights are operated at reasonable rates.

Out of the 21 airports, four will be developed in Bijapur, Hassan, Kalaburagi and Shimoga of Karnataka, and three airports in Navi Mumbai, Sindhudurg and Shirdi of Maharashtra, three airports in Andhra Pradesh, Dagadarthi, Bhogapuram and Orvakal.

Among the approved airports, eight airports in Durgapur, Shirdi, Kannur, Pakyong, Kalaburagi, Orvakal, Sindhudurg and Kushinagar have been put into operation.

The operationalization of these airports would pin a huge area on the national aviation map of India, especially in the northeastern region, bringing strong air connectivity.

The airport projects include financing projects that remain with the airport developers involved, including the respective state governments.

The Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS)-UDAN was launched to promote regional air connectivity by making flying affordable to the public.

The scheme aims to encourage airlines to operate flights on regional and remote routes through policy action and expansion of incentives.

In the past five years, 409 routes and 66 airports have been operationalized under the UDAN scheme, more than 90 lakh people have benefited from it and more than 1 lakh have flown 75,000 flights under this scheme.

The government plans to build 34 new airports by 2025, bringing the total number of airports to 100 new airports in India by 2025 with 1,000 new routes under the UDAN RCS program. The government also plans to invest $1.83 billion in airport infrastructure development by 2026.

Currently, there are 130 operational airports, including 29 international, 91 domestic and ten dedicated airports.

To date, 14 water airports have been identified in Gujarat, Assam, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.

For better transportation of perishable agricultural products, the Krishi UDAN 2.0 program was implemented at 53 airports in India, mainly targeting the Northeast and Tribal regions.

According to the National Monetization Pipeline (NMP), 25 airports of the Airport Authority of India (AAI) are earmarked for revenue generation between 2022-25.

The government aims to double air passenger traffic by 2030. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), India could overtake China and the US as the third largest air passenger market in the world by 2030, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).