The Budgetary allocation for the Civil Aviation Ministry has been almost tripled to ₹6,602.86 crore for 2018-19, with about 67% of the funds being provisioned for the purchase of two new aircraft for VVIP flights. A total of ₹4,469.50 crore has been provisioned for “purchase of two new VVIP aircraft for special extra section flight operations,” as per the Budget document. SpiceJet chairman and managing director Ajay Singh said NABH Nirman could take the number of airports in India to 700 from about 125 airports today. On regional connectivity scheme UDAN, Mr. Jaitley said 56 unserved airports and 31 unserved helipads across India would be connected. The government has increased the allocation to fund the scheme by five times to ₹1,014 crore.

Source: The Hindu February 01, 2018 16:30 UTC