Ranchi, Aug. 23: As many as 11 companies from across the country are eager to teach youths of Jharkhand how to fly.
The office of the state tribal welfare commissioner today opened the technical bids of the companies that have shown interest in imparting lessons to Scheduled Tribe, Scheduled Caste and OBC students under a commercial pilot training scheme of the state welfare department.
In mid July, the welfare department had invited tenders from the companies. The financial bids will be opened on August 26.
The interested firms/academies are Saraswati Aviation Academy (Uttar Pradesh), Government Aviation Training Institute (Bhubaneswar), Academy of Carver Aviation (Mumbai), Chimes Aviation (Delhi), Orient Aviation (Chennai), Alchemist Aviation (Jamshedpur), Wings Aviation Pvt Ltd (Hyderabad), Skype Aviation (Chhattisgarh), Gujarat Flying Club (Gujarat) and Garv Aviation (Uttar Pradesh) and Banasfali Aviation (Rajasthan).
“After the financial bids are opened, our men will evaluate infrastructure facilities available with the institutes. Thereafter, we will shortlist some of them according to our priorities,” said state tribal welfare commissioner Pravin Toppo.
He added that the process of selecting a flying institute, communicating with the students and then starting the training course would take about a month.
In 2001-2002, the then Babulal Marandi government had launched the commercial pilot training programme for Scheduled Tribe, Scheduled caste and OBC boys. In the first batch, 25 boys were trained and had reportedly bagged jobs in various airlines.
In the successive years, however, the course remained suspended.
In 2007-08, as many as 2,000 applications had poured in from Plus-II boys and girls, who wanted to become commercial pilots. But the training did not take place.
Last year, the state government had selected 28 candidates, including a girl, Dibya Ekka, for undergoing a year’s training.
Hyderabad-based Spica Aviation Institute was selected to impart training. But as the institute did not possess necessary certificates from Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the students were pulled out of the academy.
Under the agreement, the state will sponsor the training programme while each beneficiary will have to take the responsibility of educating two children of his locality or village till the graduation level.
However, sources said only a few of the candidates of the first batch have adopted kids.
“We will look into the issue and devise a plan to ensure that the candidates follow the agreement,”said Toppo.
