State government steps in to give wings to grounded flying club
The Rajasthan State Flying School (RSFS) has hired a consultant to study the viability of running its flying club, which has been non-operational since 2008.
“We are making efforts to start the flying club. The state finance department had questioned its feasibility -- whether the club can sustain itself -- as the government is providing annual aid for its operations for two decades,” a senior aviation department official told HT on Friday.
“We have hired a consultant to prepare a project on the viability of running the flying club. The report will be submitted to the finance department by next week,” he said, preferring anonymity. In 2008, the anti-corruption bureau (ACB) had exposed a scam in the RSFS -- trainees were given certificates showing more flying hours than they had actually done.
Earlier, the state government had considered running the flying school on a public-private partnership mode and decided to invite expression of interest, but the initiative did not materialise. Flying clubs are running on a PPP mode in Odisha and Nagpur.
“The flying school in Jaipur has a history of over 35 years and it has produced a number of pilots who are at good positions today. The school closed down in 2008; had it not been so, 100 more pilots would have been trained,” the official said.
“The flying school used to have a good number of students till 2005; then the number started decreasing and finally it was closed.”
The Aero Club of India (ACI) asked the Rajasthan government in 2016 to direct the RSFS to hand over aircraft/motor gliders allotted by them. The ACI has in fact re-allocated Cessna-152 and Cessna-172 aircraft, and Sinus-912 motor glider of the RSFS to Ahmedabad Gliding and Flying Club. The re-allocation was cancelled after the RSFS assured the ACI to restart flying activities.