Trainee pilots with state welfare department officials at Tribal Research Institute, Ranchi on Saturday. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Ranchi, Nov. 13: Tribal, Scheduled Caste and OBC students shortlisted by the state government to receive free commercial pilot training are ready to give wings to their dream.

At a meeting at the State Tribal Research Institute in the capital today, the students signed agreements with the government prior to their departure for Bilaspur tomorrow, where Sai Flytech Aviation Private Limited will train them. The students will report at the institute on November 15 —Jharkhand’s foundation day.

“We asked the students to concentrate on their training and wished them good luck,” said state tribal welfare commissioner Praveen Toppo.

Altogether, 30 students will be trained. The welfare department added two waitlisted students to the group of 28 shortlisted earlier. The state will spend Rs 19 lakh on each student for the 18-month training programme. As part of the agreement, each student has to sponsor the education of two children from his or her village up to graduation.

The students and their parents, who had to wait anxiously for several months before the welfare department zeroed in on the Bilaspur-based aviation institute, could not stop praising the state government.

“Now I can see my dream to fly high come true,” said Sudhir Bhagat, a tribal from the Naxalite-hit Latehar district. An alumni of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya in Latehar and a graduate of Marwari College in Ranchi, Sudhir had long dreamt of becoming a pilot. However, lack of financial means always stood as a barrier. The state’s free commercial pilot training scheme has finally helped him pursue his dreams.

Meanwhile, Vijay Garg, president of Garg Aviation in Kanpur, complained of foul play in the selection of the Bilaspur-based aviation institute to provide training to the students. “Ours was first among the three institutes that were shortlisted. There was something wrong in choosing the flying school,” said Garg.