Civil aviation ministry hosts stake-holders conference on regional connectivity scheme

New Delhi [India] Nov.12 (ANI): The Ministry of Civil Aviation hosted a stake-holders conference/pre-bidding meeting at the India Habitat Centre here on Friday. The aim of the conference was to review progress of the regional connectivity scheme (RCS) -UDAN launched by Civil Aviation Minister P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju on October 21. The objective of the RCS is to facilitate/ stimulate regional air connectivity by making it affordable. Regional air connectivity is envisaged to reduce the cost of airline operation on RCS routes and financial (viability gap funding i.e. VGF) support to meet the gap, if any, between cost of airline operation and expected revenue on such routes. A selected airline operator will be identified to operate on RCS route or network, on the basis of evaluation of initial proposal(s) and counter proposal(s) for VGF, received from airline operators who are having valid Air Operator Permit issued by DGCA. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has been designated as the implementing agency under the scheme. Notice Inviting Proposals (NIP) for first round has been issued and published in newspapers. The proposal due date (PDD) is on December 12, 2016 up to 5.30 p.m. The presentation on RCS-UDAN was made by Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Civil Aviation and R.N.Choubey, Secretary, Civil Aviation. The MSTC who was engaged for development of e-bidding portal for RCS-UDAN made presentation on e-bidding process during the conference. The views of state governments were also taken in the conference. (ANI)