Daughter of DGCA No. 2 got licence from school with no plane

Mumbai: They did not have even a single aircraft at their airport base, neither did they have a classroom or a hangar there, but in 2007, for some reason, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) was benevolent enough to grant Raipur-based Touchwood Aviation the approval to start flying training for Commercial Pilot License (CPL) students.
A month after it started, Rashmi Sharan, the daughter of A K Sharan, joint director general of DGCA and its number two man, joined the school. Back then, Sharan was the deputy director general (training and licensing), the department which grants approval to flying training organisations. A year after Rashmi got her license and moved out, the school shut down.
The case of Touchwood Aviation is an intriguing one as it is perhaps the only flying school in India to ever get a Flight Training Organisation approval even before it could position an aircraft at its base. It was also allowed to function, though it did not have the mandatory classroom or hangar at its airport base.
Director General Bharat Bhushan said that he was looking into the case. Manjit Singh, owner of Touchwood Aviation, said that nine students, including Rashmi Sharan, completed their CPL from his school. It shut down in August 2009. Rashmi did her training between September 24, 2007 and October 7, 2008.
"Airports Authority of India, the owner of Raipur airport, asked Touchwood to pay 13% of the gross turnover since the time of starting school. This made us economically unviable," Singh said about the closure of the school. He confirmed that no hangar space was allotted by AAI at Raipur airport.
Touchwood said that if it gets airport space at rates which are economically viable, it would start operations.
27/04/11 Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Apr 2011