Mumbai pilot Amol Yadav (second from left) has been cleared to fly his homemade plane.
Amol Yadav may be just one man but he has managed to do what many of India's larger enterprises haven't been able to. The journey wasn't easy but at the end of a six-year endeavour that included selling his home and a daunting fight against red tape, Mr Yadav's dreams have taken wings - only the flight is left. The aircraft enthusiast has
not only managed to build a working plane by himself, he has also managed to move the clunky bureaucracy into granting him a license to fly it.
"The DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) has provided a registration certificate to pilot Amol Yadav," a statement from Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' office said on Monday. It was on the Chief Minister's request that PM Narendra Modi's himself intervened to ensure that Mr Yadav could finally stop going around in circles with the aviation regulator.
Amol Yadav built the aircraft on the rooftop of a building in Mumbai.
Grateful, he has dedicated his aircraft's registration to Mr Fadnavis and PM Modi. "The registered name of the aircraft is VT-NMD or Victor Tango Narendra Modi Devendra," Mr Yadav told NDTV.
A resident of Mumbai, Mr Yadav sold his house and spent Rs 4 crore to build a six-seater airplane on a rooftop of a building in Kandivali. In 2016, it was put on display at an exhibition under the Make in India scheme. But the permission for a test flight eluded him.
Mumbai Pilot Amol Yadav spent Rs 4 crore to build the plane.
Before PM Modi's intervention, Mr Yadav alleges, the DGCA not only sat on his application for years but also changed old rules that would have allowed him to fly the aircraft. But it was his incessant campaign that ultimately forced the rules to be changed.
"The rules will prevent huge losses to the Indian exchequer because people like me and more will be able to make planes. They will be able to get the planes registered and fly them too," he said.
But having done all of this, Mr Yadav is not kicking back, relaxing in the comfort of his success. He says he is already started the work on a 19-seater aircraft.