New Delhi, Sep 9 (IANS): Aiming to promote Krishi Udan Scheme, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has granted a full waiver of landing, parking and navigation charges by the Airports Authority of India at 21 domestic airports operated by it for cargo aircraft.

The airports include Agartala, Dehradun, Dibrugarh, Dimapur, Ranchi, Shimla and many others.

As per the Ministry, for facilitating and incentivising movement of agri-produce by air transportation, Airports Authority of India (AAI) provides full waiver of Landing, Parking charges, Terminal Navigation Landing Charges (TNLC) and Route Navigation Facility Charges (RNFC) for Indian freighters and P2C (Passenger-to-Cargo) aircraft.

Krishi Udan Scheme 2.0 was announced on October 27, 2021 enhancing the existing provisions, mainly focusing on transporting perishable food products from the hilly areas, North-Eastern States and tribal areas.

Krishi Udan Scheme is a convergence scheme where eight Ministries/Departments namely Ministry of Civil Aviation, Department of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare, Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER) would leverage their existing schemes to strengthen the logistics for transportation of Agri-produce.

According to a parliament reply in the first week of August, 58 airports were already covered under Krishi Udan 2.0.

All perishable commodities are covered under Krishi Udan Scheme in the country. The scheme assists farmers in transporting agricultural products so that it improves their value realisation. Krishi Udan scheme provides air transportation and logistics support for perishable agri-produce as per the need.