From the taxes being employed on the airlines by the government, it is expecting to earn Rs. 300 Crore every year from the airlines which fly on all the major routes as per the regional air connectivity scheme. Under the UDAN scheme, the civil aviation ministry has been collecting the tax in order to raise money for the viability gap since December 2016. Under the UDAN scheme, more routes are getting added in order to connect the unserved and under-served airports so that flying can be made more affordable.
The ministry is also preparing to deal with the needs of higher funds in the coming months. Rs. 5,000 are charged as the tax for the departure of each flight on the major routes. The levy was Rs. 8,500 initially which has now reduced. Half the seats in the UDAN flights are subsidized and also the carriers which are a part of the scheme will receive a certain amount of viability gap funding which will be the amount shared between the concerned center and states. All the five operators including TruJet, Air Deccan, Alliance Air and Air Odisha which won the first round of bidding under the UDAN have begun with their operations already.
IndiGo, as well as Jet Airways, have won routes in the second round of bidding and still have to start their services under the scheme. Mr. Arun Jaitley, the finance minister, stated in his budget speech of 2018-19 that 56 unserved airports along with 31 under-served helipads will connect as per the regional air connectivity scheme. The allocation for UDAN too has been increased to Rs. 1014.09 Crore for the next financial year. For the year 2017-18, the budget had been fixed at Rs. 200.11 Crore for the same.