Gujarat’s First Commercial Seaplane Service

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Seaplane

A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing on water.
These ‘FLOATING PLANES’ or ‘SEAPLANES’ have been used for light duty transportation to lakes, small/hilly islands without proper airstrips and other remote areas.

Gujarat state government has announced that the 1^st seaplane service* will be providing air connectivity from Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad to Statue of Unity in Kevadia
It is scheduled to start from October 31,2020, birth anniversary of Sardar Patel.

NO, India has had seaplanes before, although attempts to begin commercial services have mostly fizzled out after operators found that the trips were not commercially viable.
The first-ever commercial seaplane service was launched in India in 2010 – Jal Hans, a service which was jointly operated by Pawan Hans, the public sector helicopter service provider and the administration of the Andaman & Nicobar islands
Kerala also started s service in June 2013.

Ahmedabad to Kevadia will be the first of four seaplane services planned in Gujarat
The other spots are –

SpiceJet will operate a 19-seater plane, which will be able to accommodate 14 passengers.
There will be four flights per day
The ticket price would be around 4800 per person.
Journey by road – 4 hours
Journey by seaplane – 1 hour
The seaplane project of the country is part of a directive of the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation.
As per the directive, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) requested state governments of Gujarat, Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and the administration of Andaman & Nicobar to propose potential locations for setting up water aerodromes to boost the tourism sector.
Construction of the terminals at both ends is almost complete with prefabricated structures

The water aerodrome is not a listed project/activity in the Schedule to the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2006 and its amendments.
Impact will be similar type as that of an airport.
Shoolpaneshwar Wildlife Sanctuary is located at an aerial distance of 2.1 km from the project site.
Evacuation of crocodiles from the lake has been on since January 2019.

India has roughly 14,500 km of navigable waterways.
Introducing seaplane travel is a right step in the direction of diversifying India’s transportation system.