Does Jamia Milia control Pawan Hans?

It was a few days back when a report emerged that can shake your consciousness. Since then, there have been debates on social media over the recruitment practices of Pawan Hans Limited. It is a central government-owned helicopter service provider based in Noida. of India. Let’s dive in to know more about what actually happened.

Pawan Hans’ strange connection with Jamia Milia

Pawan Hans Limited recently shared a list of new graduates who would join the organization for the internship. What caught the attention of the public is that all of them belonged to a single religion, that is, Muslim. How is that possible?

If the sources are something to go by, this happened Pawan Hans Limited (PHL) had signed an agreement with Jamia Milia Islamia, a ‘minority educational institute’ based in New Delhi.

In 2017, Pawan Hans signed an agreement with Jamia Millia Islamia University to provide two and a half years full-time basic aircraft maintenance training course to the students. It has been found that the students who are mentioned on the list belong to Jamia Milia Islamia, pursuing courses like B.Sc. (Aeronautics) and B.Sc. (Aviation).

Isn’t it weird that the university did not have a single non-Muslim student who can be enrolled for the internship programme? Probably, they all were not ‘intellectual’ enough to get enrolled, right?

For those unversed, Pawan Hans Limited is a government-owned outfit under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India. It provides exclusive helicopter services at offshore locations for Indian Oil companies. Moreover, they also provide their services at  holy pilgrimage destinations like Kedarnath and Vaishno Devi shrine.

PHL and the controversies around it

Earlier in 2018, the probe reports prepared by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) suggested that 20 of 25 accidents involving Pawan Hans Helicopters Limited (PHHL) over the last 30 years were due to the improper maintenance and not following the safety regulations by the operator. As per the Indian Express report, since 1988, 91 people were killed in these accidents, including 60 passengers, 27 pilots and four crew.

The probe reports also accused the PHHL management for violation of safety norms and informed that the accidents were more due to “organisational lapses than technical reasons”.

One of the reports suggested that the accident that took place in 2010 in which the crash of an MI-172 killed one person occurred “due to falling of the cabin crew from the helicopter while he was attempting to close the forward left hand passenger door in flight”.

Such is the facility of Pawan Hans that in 2011 alone, 31 people, including Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu and seven PHHL pilots, were killed in crashes.

Moving further, another twelve accidents took place between 2010 and 2018 which took the lives of 55 people. Since 1988, PHHL has lost 21 helicopters in accidents, the reports revealed.

How is that possible that a government backed company is performing consistently poor? How it has never been questioned for such a bad service? Why it has not been held responsible for all the lives it took? Now, Pawan Hans connection with Jamia Milia has also been exposed. It is high time that the central government take some strict action against Pawan Hans limited.