Plane Ambition

AFTER LOSING A NEW AIRCRAFT WORTH Rs 67 CR. AND SPENDING Rs 23 CR. IN LEASING, MP WANTS TO BUY A Rs 120 CR. JET

- Rahul Noronha

On May 6, 2021, Madhya Pradesh’s state aircraft—a turbine propeller-driven B250 King Air—had run into an arrester barrier at the Maharajpur airbase in Gwalior, while ferrying Remdesivir injections. Eight months later, the state has decided to gift itself a swanky new jet. A state aircraft is used primarily by the chief minister, the Governor, ministers and at times ruling party functionaries authorised by the CM—under whom the state’s civil aviation department functions.

The B250 King Air had been acquired barely a year before at a cost of Rs 67 crore. Coincidentally, just a day prior to the accident, the state civil aviation department had floated a tender for insuring the aircraft and two helicopters in the fleet—a Eurocopter 155 and a Bell 430. However, the insurance was still to come through, so the aircraft was declared a total loss.