Soon, a national plan for helicopter services for medical emergencies: Jyotiraditya Scindia

A pilot project to commence at AIIMS Rishikesh

Minister for Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday said the Union government will draw a national plan for helicopter emergency medical services in the country and a pilot project towards it would soon be launched at AIIMS Rishikesh.

Mr. Scindia said that under the pilot project ‘Sanjeevani’, a helicopter will be deployed in the next few weeks to provide emergency medical services at AIIMS Rishikesh. The helicopter will have a service cover of 150 km radius and will provide emergency evacuation within 20 minutes. This project will help the government in drafting the national policy, the Minister said, speaking at the fourth Heli-India summit in Srinagar.

The Minister on the day also unveiled the guidelines for a new initiative called “fractional ownership” of helicopters, under which multiple owners share the cost of acquisition and operation of the aircraft in return for rights to use them for a specified number of hours or days in a year.

The Minister said that use of helicopters for medical emergency services along with the “fractional ownership” will be key drivers for growth of helicopter services in the country. He said that his Ministry has also set up a “Helicopter Accelerator Cell” to promote connectivity.

The Helicopter Accelerator Cell is active in resolving issues related to helicopters and the advisory group of industry representatives has been helping in identifying problems areas. “We have waived off landing and parking charges for helicopters at airports and we have started helicopter sensitisation training of ATC officers for speedier helicopter traffic handling. Three helicopter corridors -- Mumbai-Pune, Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar, and Shamshabad-Begumpet -- have been created and new IFR corridors are being planned. Working with Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), we have been able to allot helipad spaces from the design stage for all future expressways and major highways so that it can be used for evacuation of accident victims. We have already commenced work on the upgradation of Juhu helibase -- the largest in the country -- to accommodate night operations and helicopter IFR routes using GAGAN,” he added.

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