Lucknow, Feb 22 (IANS): The civil aviation sector of Uttar Pradesh is set to get more wings with the commencement of flight operations from the newly constructed Bareilly airport.

Under the Centre's flagship regional connectivity scheme (RCS), flights are scheduled to be operated by Alliance Air between Bareilly and Delhi from March 8, every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The airline will also begin two flights from Prayagraj connecting Delhi and Bilaspur, from March 1 under RCS.

The flights would operate on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. In both cases, the airline would be using ATR 72 aircraft.

Bareilly would be the eighth airport in the state to get functional after the ones in Lucknow, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Kanpur, Hindon, Agra and Prayagraj.

Civil Aviation Secretary Surendra Singh said the state government has spent around Rs 83 crore on construction of a civil enclave in Bareilly. This is apart from the around 35 acres of land which has been made available to Airports Authority of India (AAI) free of cost and Rs 9.8 crore for ensuring dedicated power supply, he said.

Sources in the civil aviation department said that IndiGo Airlines has also sent a team to Bareilly to conduct an assessment to operate flights.

"The area is largely unserved despite having many tourist places nearby," a senior official in the department said.

The area also has several industrialists who seek flights to reach business centres like Delhi and Mumbai.

Sources said that the demand for these facilities had been pending for long but neither the district administration nor the previous state governments had paid heed.

Since air connectivity is being provided under RCS, the state government would give a number of sops to the airline including viability gap funding, free electricity up to 4,000 units, waiver on VAT on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) for 10 years and security and fire services.

The state government would also provide road connectivity, bus services and ambulance services.