Budget 2020 news: 100 more airports under UDAN scheme announced

Budget 2020 news: As many as 100 new airports will be constructed over the next four years, announced Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday. These new airports will be developed under government's UDAN scheme. "100 more airports to be developed by 2024 to support the UDAN scheme," finance minister said, in her Budget speech.

The first flight under the UDAN scheme was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi between Shimla and New Delhi in 2017. The Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik scheme is an endeavour to make regional connectivity easy. The scheme was introduced to stimulate regional connectivity with flights covering distances up to 800 km through a market-based mechanism.

The finance minister said that Project Preparation Facility will be set up for preparation of infrastructure projects, actively involving young engineers and management graduates. She also announced large solar power capacity to be set up alongside rail tracks, on land owned by Railways.

In another major announcement for the infra sector, Sitharaman said that more Tejas types trains will soon be introduced to iconic destinations in India.

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She said that government's debt reduced to 48.7% of GDP in 2019 from 52.2% and has clocked a GDP growth of 7.4% over 2014-19 & FDI increased from $119 bn in 2009-14 to $ 284 billion.

"There are one million people out of poverty and we should be proud of it. We have moved on from over 4 per cent growth in 1950s to 7.4 per cent to 2014-19 period. Motto of `Sabka saath, sabka vikas and sabka vishwas` has implemented new programmes for the poor and disadvantaged under Prime Minister Modi," the finance minister said.

"We have clocked a GDP growth of 7.4% over 2014-19 and FDI increased from $119 billion in 2014-19 to $284 billion", she added.