Number of airports gone up 100% in India: Scindia

1 min read 08 Jan 2023, 11:48 AM IST Join us

Edited By Alka Jain

Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia was addressing the inaugural ceremony of a daily flight between Bhubaneswar and Rourkela under the RCS UDAN scheme.

Union Minister for Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia said the number of airports in the country have gone up 100 per cent. (PTI)

Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Saturday said that the number of airports in the country have gone up 100 per cent to 148 in a period of eight years from 74 in 2014, according to the news agency ANI.

He was addressing the inaugural ceremony of a daily flight between Bhubaneswar and Rourkela under the RCS UDAN scheme.

“There were only 74 airports in the country till 2014, today this number including heliports and water aerodromes has increased to 148 which is a 100 per cent increase in eight years," Scindia said.

The minister further stated that before the pandemic there was a record established that 4,20,000 passengers travelled in a single day, as per ANI reports.

"Now that record has been broken and four lakh fifty thousand passengers travelled in a day. In December 2022, more than four lakh passengers travelled each day of the month," he added.

In an official statement, the Civil Aviation Ministry said that the flight between Bhubaneswar and Rourkela commenced operation from Saturday and will operate seven days a week. It will act as an important link between Bhubaneswar and Rourkela during the upcoming Hockey World Cup.

He also congratulated the residents of both cities and said that there had been unprecedented growth in the Indian Civil Aviation scene in the last eight years under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ANI reported.

Speaking about the upcoming Hockey World Cup which will be organised in these cities of Odisha, the Minster said that earlier the travel time between Kalinga Stadium Bhubaneswar to Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium Rourkela used to be nine hours which will now be reduced to one hour ten minutes through flight.

The inauguration was carried out in the presence of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister for State for Civil Aviation Gen. Vijay Kumar Singh (Rtd), Lok Sabha Members of Parliament Aparajita Sarangi, and Jual Oram, among others.

(With ANI inputs)

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