Even after 16 years of Jharkhand being a separate State, the Government is yet to purchase its own helicopter.
Officials claim that the process of purchasing a helicopter will be completed soon as things are being finalised by a high-level committee formed in this regard.
“As such things call for technical expertise where each and every aspect is needs to be taken care of, it takes time to get such things finalized. But things are being finalized and files are being put, we expect that it will be done very soon,” said Civil Aviation Principal Secretary KK Khandelwal.
Meanwhile, the State Government somehow, is managing with Dolphin helicopter provided by Aryan Aviation Private limited on lease, having a capacity of five seats in executive version and could be extended to 13 seats.
“One helicopter has been engaged on lease by the State Government, which is currently paying Rs 3 lakh per hour to the company. On an average it flies for around 40-50 hour per month,” said Civil Aviation Director SP Verma.
Verma further added that a high level committee, headed by Chief Secretary, has also been formed for making purchase of helicopter which is working on it.
Incidentally, a tender was floated in the year 2016 for the purchase of helicopter but files are still pending which seems to be moving with a very slow pace.
The process of purchasing its own chopper was expedited after May 9, 2012 when the then Chief Minister Arjun Munda, his wife along with three other had escaped narrowly as their chopper crash-landed on Birsa Munda airport due to technical failure and the then Deputy CM Hemant Soren, in charge of the Civil Aviation department, had announced that the State would buy its own chopper for VVIP movement and other important exercises.
The announcement, however, remained merely an announcement for over six months till Munda formed a panel in October 2012 for purchase of a state owned chopper.
The panel was to evaluate proposals for the purchase that would be finalized through a global tender. The committee, however, could not do much till December 2012 when the Civil Aviation department of the State finally floated global tender inviting commercial permit holders to bid for a twin-engine medium passenger helicopter. Even though companies like Scotia, Bell helicopters, Eurocopter India, Augusta and a group of Russian helicopters were reported to have offered their proposals, the bidding process could not take off in the last financial year.