100 new airports and 1,000 new routes under UDAN by 2025: Scindia. Daily direct flight between Varanasi-Gorakhpur takes off
Varanasi: The first direct flight between Gorakhpur and Varanasi took off in the presence of Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, today. SpiceJet has been awarded the route under the RCS-UDAN 4.1. and this new flight route was a part of nine new UDAN flights that SpiceJet launched today out of which 6 was for Uttar Pradesh specially and 3 for other states of the country.
The Flight schedule is as follows:
Gorakhpur and Varanasi are popular tourist destinations in Uttar Pradesh. While Varanasi was already connected with 11 cities, 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 now be further connected with 3 more cities – Varanasi, Bangalore and Kanpur.
Gorakhpur is situated near Nepal Border along the banks of the Rapti river and is a famous religious centre being the home to the Gorakhnath Math and Gorakhnath temple, the seat of the Nath sect and other Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh saints. Varanasi is one of the world’s oldest continually inhabited cities on earth famous for its bathing ghats along the banks of river Ganga. The most notable temples in Varanasi are Kashi Vishwanath, Sankat Mochan Temple, and Durga Temple. The city has long been an educational and musical centre. Many prominent Indian philosophers, poets, writers, and musicians live or have lived in the city, and it is home to India’s first residential university, Banaras Hindu University. Hindus from across the world visit Varanasi to perform holy dip in the Ganges and rituals at dozens of ghats along the river.
Scindia said the capacity of the civil enclave of Gorakhpur Airport would further be increased to 300 passengers from the current 100 passengers by December 2022. He also referred to the setting up of 7 new airports in Saharanpur, Muradabad, Aligarh, Azamgarh, Shravasti, Chitrakoot and Sonbhadra and 2 new international airports in Noida and Ayodhya in near future. “With this, Uttar Pradesh will have 18 domestic and 5 international airports,” he said.
It may be mentioned that the Ministry of Civil Aviation plans to construct 34 new airports taking the total number of airports to 100 new airports in India with 1,000 new routes under the UDAN RCS scheme by the year 2025. In the last 5 years, 409 routes and 66 airports have already been operationalized under the UDAN scheme.
Photo: Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi
– global bihari bureau
