Infra ready, Tourism Department fails to start paragliding school

The Himachal Pradesh Tourism Department has failed to make a paragliding school, constructed at a cost of Rs 8 crore three years ago, operational at Bir-Billing. Under a Government of India-funded project, the state government had received funds from the Ministry of Tourism for the construction of a paragliding school in 2015, when Virbadhra Singh was the Chief Minister of the state. The Tribune has highlighted the issue in these columns earlier.

While laying the foundation stone of the school building eight years ago, the then Chief Minister late Virbadhra Singh, announced that the school would be functional within two years. Information gathered by The Tribune revealed that the school could not be made operational as the Tourism Department was yet to frame rules to regulate paragliding schools not only at Bir-Billing, but in the entire state. Vinay Dhiman, District Tourism Officer, said the framing of rules to regulate the upcoming paragliding schools in the state are in the final stage. He expressed hope the paragliding school at Billing would become functional within three months.

Virbhadra’s successor, Jai Ram Thakur, on a visit to Bir-Billing in 2021 also announced the early start of classes in the paragliding school, but to no avail. Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, during a visit to Bir Billing in October 2023, also directed the Tourism Department to start classes immediately; his orders are yet to be implemented. Hundreds of paragliding enthusiasts from the country and abroad who visit Bir-Billing every year are facing inconvenience as officially no training schools are functional in the area.

No guidelines have been laid to regulate paragliding schools in the state. The Tourism Department has on several occasions announced framing of rules to regulate private paragliding schools and adventure sports in the state, but no steps have been taken in this direction so far.

With the increase in the number of aspirants keen to learn paragliding, several private schools have come up at Bir-Billing illegally. A number of local pilots have been training paragliding enthusiasts. Gurpreet Singh Dhindsa, a native of Punjab and a renowned pilot, has been running a private school at Bir for the past 20 years.

Talking to The Tribune, he admitted that his school was not registered with any authority in Himachal Pradesh since there was no provision to register paragliding schools. Dhindsa said he had been moving from pillar to post to get his school registered for the past 20 years, but all he was told to wait till the new rules were framed.

He said whenever a mishap took place, private schools were shut down by the Tourism Department without assigning any reason.

“The department should come out with new rules to register the paragliding schools at the earliest; we are ready to pay the registration fee so that aspiring pilots do not fall into the hands of untrained people. Many times untrained pilots are responsible for fatal mishaps, which brings a bad name to the entire fraternity,” he added.

No rules framed for such schools

• Tourism Dept yet to frame rules to regulate paragliding schools not only at Bir-Billing, but in the entire state
• With the increase in number of aspirants keen to learn paragliding, several private schools have come up at Bir-Billing illegally
• Three chief ministers in their tenures had announced the opening of the school, but no steps have been taken in this direction so far