India's only 'civilian' medical evacuation copter

 For all that talk about taking the nascent civilian helicopter market in India to soaring heights, here’s a piece of stark ground reality: There is only one “civilian” medical evacuation helicopter in the entire country! An Augusta Westland chopper, run by a private operator in Delhi, to be precise.

You couldn’t expect more in a country which has barely 300 civilian helicopters, out of a global market of 35,000.

Ninety-nine per cent of those 300 helicopters are into conventional transport. Thanks to the regulatory framework here, use of helicopters is non-existent in areas such as cargo, seismic inspection, emergency services, airborne law enforcement or electronic news gathering, a top official tracking copter trends in India told Deccan Herald at Aero India 2013.

The concept of “air ambulances” has been in the air for years. The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) had even prepared a medical emergency version of the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) for civilian use. But the project was shelved because there were no takers. “To boost the market for air ambulances, there should be a system of social security (government and health insurance firms), corporate hospitals and helicopter operators. This is how it works in countries such as the United States,” explained an official of Pawan Hans Helicopters, the country’s largest chopper operator.

Factors are several for the slow growth of the civilian market in India. “There are no new oil exploration sites. Pilgrimages, where helicopters are sometimes used, are only seasonal and more importantly, the paying capacity of the people is low here,” the official said. The cost of operation of a helicopter is four times that of a fixed wing aircraft, because of the multiple moving parts on a copter’s body.

The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) regulations, skewed heavily in favour of fixed wing aircraft, have not helped the helicopter market either.

“As things stand, rules of fixed wing aircraft are generally applied to helicopters,” said another helicopter expert. At the Aero-India 2013, the civilian helicopter companies were on the periphery and that was a tell-tale reflection of the rotary wing market in India.