Gorakhpur-Varanasi: UDAN Connects PM's And UP CM's Constituencies

In a first, two historic cities of Kashi and Varanasi were connected by a direct flight under the UDAN scheme. The air service was inaugurated by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday.

Spice Jet was awarded the route at the event that was virtually attended by CM Yogi Adityanath from Lucknow and Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia from Gwalior.

“Today is a historic day as we are connecting 2 ancient cities which have deep cultural and religious impact on the history of our country. Varanasi was connected with 11 cities but with the inauguration of this summer schedule, it will now further be connected with 4 more cities namely Gorakhpur, Jaipur, Guwahati and Jammu. Similarly, Gorakhpur which was connected with 6 cities will further connected with 3 more cities – Varanasi, Bangalore and Kanpur amounting to 9 cities in total. In Gorakhpur, we are looking to increase the capacity of the civil enclave of Gorakhpur Airport to 300 passengers from current 100 passenger by December 2022,” said Scindia.

“The Vishwanath temple in Varanasi is being connected to Gorakhnath by air today. It is a matter of great pleasure for me that Gorakhpur to Kanpur, Varanasi to Mumbai, Kanpur to Patna, Kushinagar to Kolkata and six other planes are starting today to connect different destinations of the state and the country, and I would like to thank the civil aviation minister on behalf of the people of the state, Adityanath noted, adding that 75 destinations can be reached from Uttar Pradesh to different states in the country at present.

Adityanath drew attention to the fact that until five years ago the state had only four functional airports which connected to only 25 destinations in the country. In contrast, ”we have set an example with the speed with which the airspace has developed within the state” he said.

”In the near future, 7 new airports in Saharanpur, Muradabad, Aligarh, Azamgarh, Shravasti, Chitrakoot and Sonbhadra and 2 new international airports in Noida and Ayodhya will be established. With this, Uttar Pradesh will have 18 domestic and 5 international airports,” said Scindia.

As per the release issued on the occassion, 409 routes and 66 airports have been operationalized under the UDAN scheme in the last five years with more than 90 lakh people flying. Over 1,75,000 flights are flown under this scheme.

As reported, the Ministry of Civil Aviation ‘plans and commits to construct 34 new airports taking the total number of airports to 100 new airports in India with 1,000 new routes under UDAN RCS scheme by the year 2025’.