No rules to govern paragliding in Billing

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, May 3

Billing in Kangra district is among the top 10 paragliding sites in the world and is also going to host the prestigious Paragliding World Cup in October this year. But due to lack of rules to govern the sport it has started courting controversies.

In the recent past, some paragliders had alleged that the Tourism Department had imposed a ban on paragliding at Billing due to which several Indian and foreign pilots were left dejected.

The Tourism Department had, however, refuted the charges. While talking to The Tribune, Deputy Director Tourism, Pooja Chauhan said: “The state has not imposed any ban on paragliding in Billing. No Indian or foreign pilot has been prohibited from free flying at Billing. Any pilot with valid documents can obtain permission for free flying from SDM Baijnath.”

She, however, said the department had, however, written to officials concerned to stop illegal flying at Billing. When asked about the definition of illegal flying, she said any association or body that was not registered with the Tourism Department cannot carry paragliding activities in the state.

However, presently no organisation or body has been registered with the Tourism Department for carrying out paragliding activities at Billing.

Even the Billing Paragliding Association headed by the Minister for Town and Country Planning Sudhir Sharma which is set to host Paragliding World Cup is not registered with the Tourism Department implying that all paragliding associations operating in the state were illegal.

She, however, clarified that presently only free flying pilots were allowed to carry out paragliding at Billing, whereas tandem flights (where the pilot carries a person with him during paragliding) were not allowed.

An international paraglider who is running his school at Bir said: “As per international rules, initially any paraglider has to have 100 hours of flying experience to be eligible to carry out tandem flying. After that, he has to undertake tandem conversion course to be licensed as tandem paraglider.” If this definition is followed, there would be very few persons who can be allowed tandem flying at Billing.

“The present scenario of paragliding at Billing suites only the bureaucracy. They are allowing flying but whenever there is an accident, they simply shrug off their responsibility by saying that they had not authorised paragliding here. The government should simply frame rules and allow international paragliders to carry out paragliding in a dignified manner,” he said.

Sudhir Sharma, who is also the president of Billing Paragliding Association, said earlier no organisation was registered for paragliding in Himachal as no Aero Sports Rules were available.

He said now Himachal had become the first state in the country to have framed the Aero Sports Rules. The public objections to the rules were called and they would be notified soon.

He said after the organisations or pilots register themselves with the state department under new rules they would be allowed to carry out tandem paragliding from Billing.

The minister also claimed that the Billing Paragliding Association was registered with the Aero Club of India and had been authorised to licence other bodies. The minister said parasailing would also be started at Dharamsala and Pong after the new Aero Sports Rules were notified.