The Union government on Thursday announced that regional air connectivity levy charged from commercial airlines under the UDAN scheme will be increased to ₹10,000 per departure from January 1, a move that aviation experts said could push the airfares higher.
To fund the regional air connectivity scheme — UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) — the civil aviation ministry has been collecting the levy from December 2016.
“… in order to take forward the operations under the ongoing and upcoming RCS-UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme, the levy to fund the regional air connectivity (RCF) fund has been reviewed and revised by the Central Government,” the ministry said in an order issued to airlines and airports on Thursday. “The Central Government has decided to revise the existing rate of levy on scheduled flights being operated within India to fund the Regional Air Connectivity Fund, till further revision.”
