Aviation minister inaugurates Dehradun and Pithoragarh UDAN flight
New Delhi: Union Minister of Civil Aviation, Jyotiraditya Scindia, on Tuesday virtually inaugurated an UDAN flight connecting Dehradun and Pithoragarh.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami also joined the event from Pithoragarh.
The flight connecting the two cities will be operated by Fly Big under the RCS UDAN Scheme.
Pithoragarh Airport has been developed under the UDAN-RCS scheme, with a cost of Rs 6.68 crore into a 2B VFR Airport.
The RCS flight between Dehradun and Pithoragarh was awarded under UDAN 4.2 and Fly Big will be operating a 19-seater Twin Otter DHC 6-400 aircraft.
Scindia said that the flight service between Dehradun-Pithoragarh will be operated three days a week (Monday, Tuesday and Friday).
He said, “As a result of its commencement, the road distance of about 11 hours will be covered in just one hour. This flight service will expand the tourism potential of Pithoragarh and neighbouring areas and connect the eastern regions of Uttarakhand to the capital city of Dehradun.”
Elaborating on the work being done under the UDAN scheme, he said that the development of Dharchula, Haridwar, Joshimath, Mussoorie, Nainital, and Ramnagar heliports is also being done.
On other infrastructure development carried out under the UDAN scheme, Scindia said, “We have also identified five other heliports under UDAN 5.1 Round, which include Bageshwar, Champawat, Lansdowne, Munsiyari and Triyogi Narayan Heliports. Soon development work will be started on these five other heliports as well.”
“So far, 76 routes have been awarded to the state of Uttarakhand under UDAN, out of which 40 routes including Dehradun-Pithoragarh have been operationalised. It is our endeavour to make the remaining other routes operational soon. Apart from this, we had recently inaugurated the Interim Terminal Building of Dehradun and the work of the full-fledged building will be completed soon,” said the minister.
Talking about the development work at Dehradun airport, Scindia said, “Developed at the cost of Rs 457 crore, the total area of the New Terminal building is 42,776 square meters and it can handle 1,800 passengers during peak hours and 36.5 lakh passengers annually.”