Nagpur: After prodding from the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has cleared decks for restarting the Nagpur Flying Club (NFC) after a gap of over four and half years.
The apex body granted a ‘certificate of approval’ to the British-era club for two years from Tuesday till November 15, 2023.
With this mandatory approval, the Maharashtra government run club can now admit students for training and award them Private Pilot License (PPL) and Commercial Private License (CPL) required for flying aircraft in India. TOI had been tracking the NFC’s development through a series of articles, ever since it was closed.
“The certification means we can officially restart our operations. We can also purchase new planes and demand funds from the government for the purpose. The Mahajyoti had already granted us Rs2.5 crore funds for training OBC students here. We would soon be approaching the government tribal department to offer similar funds for training tribal students,” an elated divisional commissioner Parajakta Lavangare Varma, the ex-officio chairman, told TOI.
She said she was also keen to take help from alumni in running the prestigious club that was once pride of the city and had churned out several pilots, some even served in the Indian Air Force (IAF), while others flew commercial planes in India as well as abroad.
NFC’s maintenance cum accountable manager Pragnesh Sisodia said they would soon float an advertisement inviting applications from the aspirants. “The DGCA had already awarded air-worthiness certificates to our four aircraft. We would be initially admitting a batch of 40 students and then expand their number subsequently, once we commence our operations in a full-fledged mode. They would be selected through written-cum-verbal test. We have already appointed assistant flying instructors and other ground staff for running the club’s operations and training students.”
18/11/21 Vaibhav Ganjapure/Times of India
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