Mission Lifeline Udan

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Lifeline Udan is a government initiative for air transport of medical cargo and essential supplies across India at the time of the Covid-19 crisis.

About LIfeline Udan

Under this operation, flights are being operated to transport essential medical cargo to remote parts of the country amid the lockdown to support India’s fight against Covid-19.
The flights have been operated by Air India, Alliance Air, Indian Air Force, Pawan Hans and private carriers.
The cargo compulsorily supplies goods such as regents, enzymes, medical equipment, testing kits and PPE, masks, gloves and other essential items as applicable by the State and UT Governments.
Air India is shouldered to operate dedicated scheduled cargo flights to other countries for transfer of critical medical supplies, as per the requirement.
It was launched by the Ministry of Civil Aviation to help India fight against COVID-19.
In order to help the public in tracking Lifeline Udan flights, the status of the flights were uploaded in a portal.
The portal was developed by National Informatics Centre

Note: Don’t get confused or correlate this with Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) Scheme

About: Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik(UDAN)

It is a regional airport development and “Regional Connectivity Scheme” (RCS) of Government of India, with the objective of “letting the common citizen of the country fly”, aimed at making air travel affordable and widespread, to boost inclusive national economic development, job growth and air transport infrastructure development of all regions and states of India.

Salient features:

It is a key component of National Civil Aviation Policy, 2016.
The scheme would be in operation for a period up to 10 years from the date of notification of the Scheme Version 1.0.
It has a unique demand and market-based model to develop regional connectivity. RCS will be operational only in States and at airports/aerodromes/helipads which commit and support the scheme by providing concessions as required in the scheme.
Airfares on regional flights are capped at ₹2,500/ hour of approximately 500 km on an aircraft or for a 30 min on helicopter.
Airlines have to provide 50% of the seats (minimum of 9 and a maximum of 40 UDAN Seats) at subsidized rates. Remaining 50% seats will be priced at market rate. For helicopters, if seats are less than or equal to 13 then it is required to provide 100% as RCS seats, but if capacity is more than 13 then maximum 13 will be considered as RCS seats.
Support in the form of Concessions and Viability Gap Funding will be provided to selected operators for RCS routes under the scheme.
The Centre will share 80% of the VGF collected by charging a levy of up to ₹8,500 on each departing flight of domestic airlines and the rest 20% will come from the respective state governments (other than NE states, UK, HP and UTs which will contribute 10%).
The Regional Connectivity Fund would be created for this purpose.
However, for the routes classified as State RCS Routes and Lakshadweep Specific Route, the State Governments and Ministry of Home Affairs respectively, shall be responsible for reimbursing 100% of the VGF under the scheme.

Tags: Prelims