Small Regions With Large Flight Paths: Fifth phase of regional airline connectivity gets airborne

Travelling has always been a painstaking and time-consuming task in India, more so when rural or far-flung areas are taken into consideration. For the past many decades, the only modes of public conveyance have been rickety buses and three-wheelers while travelling locally, and long-haul buses and trains for lengthy distances.

With cities enticing the rural population with better employment opportunities and a healthier lifestyle, migration from villages to metropolises has increased by leaps and bounds. Along with this, the demand for conveyance has also increased manifold. Now, people want to rush from point-A to point-B within the shortest possible period. However, affordability has always been a cause for concern as not everyone can pay fares demanded by the airlines.

The Indian Government pitched in to address this issue by introducing the UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) Scheme in 2017. This regional airport development programme is part of the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) under National Civil Aviation Policy, 2016 for upgrading under-serviced air routes and for providing affordable and subsidised airfares to the common man. The scheme would be in parlance for 10 years.

Six years ago, the RCS took flight by connecting Shimla to Delhi. As of now, there are 473 routes and 74 operational airports, heliports and water aerodromes, which have become game-changers for the Indian aviation sector in Tier-II and Tier-III cities.

Following four successful rounds of bidding, the Ministry of Civil Aviation on April 21, 2023 launched the 5th round of the RCS to further enhance connectivity to remote and regional areas of the country and to achieve last-mile connectivity.

UDAN 5.0 not only focuses on Category-2 (20-80 seats) and Category-3 (above 80 seats) segments, but the earlier cap of 600 kilometres has been waived and there is no restriction on the distance between the origin and destination of the flight. Now, no predetermined routes would be offered and only network and individual routes proposed by the airlines would be considered. The same route would not be awarded to a single airline more than once, whether in different networks or the same.

The action plan would have to be submitted by the airlines after two months from getting approval and they would have to mention their aircraft acquisition plan/availability, crew, slots, etc at the time of the technical proposal. While the earlier deadline for commencement of operations was six months from award of the route, it has now been reduced to four months.

Monopoly on a route would be curtailed through withdrawal of exclusivity if the average quarterly PLF (Passenger Load Factor) is higher than 75% for four continuous quarters.

The Government claims that the UDAN Scheme has benefited a diverse set of stakeholders. While passengers have got the benefits of air connectivity, airlines have received concessions for operating on regional routes, and unserved regions have received direct and indirect benefits of air connectivity for their economic development. Tourism and commerce have reportedly been the prime beneficiaries of this scheme. The government provides a grant (Viability Gap Funding) to the airlines to bridge the gap between their cost of operations and the expected revenue.

According to the Government, the fifth phase of the scheme will connect new routes and bring it closer to the target of making operational 1,000 routes and 50 additional airports, heliports, and water aerodromes in the future.

Healthy tradition: Alternate forms of medicine may turn into boon for rural areas

Healthcare for all has always been a much-debated topic in a developing country like India. While there are many challenges associated with providing proper medical attention to patients in rural areas, the Primary Healthcare Centres in villages and kasbas have since time immemorial been ill-equipped in terms of medicines, implements, doctors and nurses.

This has forced the rural populace to turn to untrained “medical practitioners” who have set up their “practice” after managing to learn bare treatment methods while working as compounders of MBBS/MD doctors in nearby towns or cities. The huge downside is that such “practitioners” treat on the basis of guesswork, which at times backfires and the patient’s ailment or disease worsens and they have to be rushed to government hospitals, sometimes resulting in fatalities.

POUNDING OUT DISEASES

Traditional means of medicine, like Ayurveda, Unani and Homeopathy, come to the rescue of the underprivileged and the poor in rural areas as they are not as costly as allopathy, both in terms of doctors’ fees and cost of medicines. But the majority of the masses still leans towards allopathy as it is quick to heal them of their ailments. The limited income factor also does not attract good talent to adopt traditional medicine as their profession.

Moreover, traditional medicine doses have to be tailored for each patient based on their habits, routine, mental state, preferences, what they eat, etc. For example, a homeopathy practitioner must spend a considerable time noting down the aforementioned before giving a mix of the liquids in the form of sweet pills, otherwise the medicine will have no effect. Also, during the intake of traditional medicines, certain foods are to be avoided.

Most of the time, traditional medicine practitioners are in a hurry to cater to a larger number of patients, so they give them generalised doses, which do not work in the manner intended. This also forces patients to shy away from traditional medicine.

However, a ray of light has come in the form of 25 countries coming together to promote traditional medicine. Recently, a B2B Conference and Expo along with National Arogya Summit was held at Guwahati under India’s Presidency of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The event promoted traditional medicine to contribute in economic development, environment protection and achieving the goal of health security among the SCO nations.

The Ministry of Ayush has taken various initiatives on traditional medicine during India’s SCO Presidency by organising virtual conference of experts and practitioners and conducting the First Expert Working Group on Traditional Medicine wherein draft regulations have been approved. The regulation would be subjected to each country’s administrative procedures and finally be adopted at the Head of the States Summit.