NEW DELHI, April 17 -- A parliamentary panel has recommended that the government assess profitability before disbursing Rs.28,840 crore over 10 years on UDAN, the regional air connectivity scheme. UDAN, an acronym for Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik, was launched in October 2016 and meant to make flying affordable for the masses, connecting smaller cities and towns with the national air network. Government subsidies are provided to airlines operating on these otherwise unviable routes, on flight tickets and to build infrastructure. New Delhi has spent Rs.9,000 crore from 2016 to January 2026 on UDAN. The amount proposed to be set aside for the Modified UDAN has been tripled to deepen regional connectivity and expand inclusive air access across the country. "The Committee recommends that the Ministry commission a comprehensive independent impact assessment. covering cost per passenger on each route, route-wise viability metrics, the proportion of routes achieving self-sustainability. The Modified UDAN scheme design should incorporate lessons from this assessment," the panel said. The report was tabled in parliament on March 25, the day the Cabinet approved the Modified UDAN Scheme. The panel is headed by Sanjay Kumar Jha, Janata Dal member of the Rajya Sabha from Bihar, and was constituted on September 26, 2025. The Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office of Niti Aayog had called for proposals in 2023 to do a mid-term appraisal of the initiative. Details are yet to be made public. The new scheme, which is yet to be formally launched, will provision subsidy for air tickets for five years. An amount of Rs.10,043 crore has been proposed to support airline operators for 10 years. It will also develop 100 airports from existing unserved airstrips and other infrastructure such as helipads, airstrip renewals and water aerodromes. The 31-member committee said the impact on each UDAN route "should be periodically reviewed." It sought data on passenger demographics and said subsidies for routes should be rationalized based on their performance. "Routes with less than threshold performance could be restructured, as continued support without review could reduce the efficiency of the scheme," the panel said. In the ongoing UDAN scheme, one of every four routes is not operational. UDAN has over 650 connections now. The panel cited the fifth phase where 160 of the 282 routes offered had no takers after six rounds of bidding. Over half of the routes in this phase are not operational. "Aggressive subsidization is not a substitute for demand creation. So, a performance review of existing routes, and why so many failed to generate or do not have demand needs to be seen. It makes sense to link subsidisation to outcomes," said Rajendra Prasad, an aviation expert and former director (airworthiness) at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the civil aviation regulator. The absence of a structured exit strategy for unviable city connections meant that "many UDAN airports struggle with sustainability," the panel said....