Minister for Major and Medium Industries Jagadish Shettar on Saturday said Mangaluru and Hubballi would get the third mode of connectivity — air — from March 29 under the UDAN scheme.
Mr. Shettar said the air link was happening primarily because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to see even a person wearing slippers fly. While Mangaluru is the second busiest international airport after Bengaluru in Karnataka, other places, namely Hubballi, Belagavi, Kalaburagi and Bidar, have come on the air map with the UDAN scheme.
Stating that UDAN by Mr. Modi was what the Golden Quadrilateral highway project of former Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee had envisaged, Mr. Shettar noted that more flights were operating to and from his home town now. This has paved the way for industrialisation of the important city on the Bombay-Karnataka region, he said. The Minister said Hubballi took wings under UDAN-2, while Belagavi has seen upward traffic growth since UDAN-3 was launched. Mr. Shettar also said the Hubballi airport has also encouraged IT major Infosys to set up a campus in the region with an investment of ₹350 crore. Persistent efforts by Union Minister Pralhad Joshi and BJP State chief Nalin Kumar Kateel resulted in this improved connectivity, he said.
