Krishi UDAN 2.0 focuses on transporting perishable food products from the hilly areas, northeastern states and tribal areas

New Delhi : Krishi UDAN 2.0 primarily focuses on transporting perishable food products from the hilly areas, northeastern states and tribal areas. The scheme aims to ensure seamless, cost-effective, time-bound air transportation and associated logistics for all Agri-produce originating especially from Northeast, hilly and tribal regions of the country. The objectives are to increase the share of air in the modal mix for transportation of Agri-produce, which includes horticulture, fishery, livestock & processed products. To achieve better convergence on various components catering to the development of sustainable and resilient Agri-produce value chains across various schemes of the Central and State Governments and their associated agencies as well as the resources committed by the private sector to improvesupply chain competitiveness by

1. Providing more air connectivity (national and international) between origin-destination airports aimed at bringing in improved logistics efficiency.
2. Improving infrastructure and performance in processing of air cargo by all stakeholders, including Agri-produce, horticulture, fisheries, livestock products at airports and off-airport facilities, by regulatory participating governmental agencies (PGAs).
3. Imparting special focus to air freight of organic and natural produce of NER, Tribal and Hilly Districts.
4. Achieving better and timely mapping of Agri-produce production/ supply centres with domestic demand clusters and international markets in sync with the marketing strategies.
5. Promoting adoption of plant and animal quarantine and other regulatory requirements (at airport) in the export supply chains end-to-end.
6. Enabling paperless and contactless interface with all stakeholders through digitization and digitalization via integration with existing e-platforms and their creation as required.

Government has not sanctioned any budget for the Scheme so far. Primarily  the scheme was focusing on 25 airports of NER, Hilly and Tribal region namely Agartala, Agatti, Barapani, Dehradun, Dibrugarh, Dimapur, Gaggai, Imphal, Jammu, Jorhat, Kullu (Bhuntar), Leh, Lengpui, Lilabari, Pakyong, Pantnagar, Pithoragarh, Port Blair, Raipur, Ranchi, Rupsi, Shimla, Silchar, Srinagar and Tezu. Subsequently, other 28 Airports of Airports Authority of India(AAI), namely, Adampur (Jalandhar), Agra, Amritsar, Bagdogra, Bareilly, Bhuj, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Goa, Corakhpur, Hindon, Indore, Jaisalmer, Jamnagar, Jodhpur, Kanpur (Chakeri), Kolkata, Nasik, Pathankot, Patna, Prayagraj, Pune, Rajkot, Tezpur, Trichy, Trivandrnm, Varanasi and Yisakhapatnam have been included in the Scheme.

Krishi UDAN Scheme was launched in August 2020, on international and national routes to assist farmers in transporting agricultural products so that it improves their value realisation. The scope of the Krishi Udaan Scheme was expanded by including more districts/airports across the country with an aim to extend benefit to the farmers. The Krishi UDAN is ongoing Scheme and agriculture products have been transported from the various destinations in the country. The Scheme is reviewed from time to time in consultation with stakeholders and appropriate course corrections, are made accordingly.

This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry Of Civil Aviation (Gen.(Dr) V. K. Singh (Retd) in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.