Youngsters at an airhostess training school

Ranchi, May 16: About 1,200 tribal boys and girls from across Jharkhand are having dreams of flying this year.

The youngsters have sought the state government’s assistance to become commercial pilots and airhostesses. This would be the second batch under the welfare department programme, which would be fully funding the education of the candidates.

Though it is yet to hold a screening for selection of candidates, U.K. Sangma, the principal secretary of the welfare department, said the candidates for pilot and airhostess courses would be trained at Institute of Aviation and Aviation Safety, Flight School, Mumbai.

“Tentatively, we would be selecting about 20 boys from among the applicants to given them training to become commercial pilots. From among the girls, about 60 would be chosen for the airhostesses’ course,” said Sangma.

The department was to hold a selection test in the first week of May but the exam was deferred as the post of the tribal welfare commissioner (TWC) fell vacant.

Ravindra Agarwal was the TWC until he was asked to go to Jamshedpur and take charge as the East Singhbhum deputy commissioner.

This is the second time the department would be helping tribal youngsters realise their flight dreams. It had trained 22 boys as commercial pilots and 28 girls as airhostess earlier. In return for the state government’s financial help during the training, the candidates would have to adopt two boys from their respective village and educate them up to the bachelor’s level.

This year, the welfare department wants to select “quality” students so that all of them would complete their training successfully in the first attempt. In the last batch, three of the candidates had failed to clear the test.

The welfare department also approached leading airlines to find out the industry’s requirement for airhostess. “We held talks with JetLite, Air India, MDLR and Deccan on what should be the quality of girls for airhostess training,” said an official.

Sangma said they would allot funds for training after the selection process is over. “Money is not an issue,” he said.