India is embarking on a project to boost the use of helicopters for emergency medical services (EMS) with a plan to build a network of helipads along major highways. The initiative, which is being launched in the mountainous northern state of Uttarakhand, is expected to extend across the vast country with plans for at least 600 landing sites that could also be used by drones and eVTOLs.
In February, helicopter operator Pinnacle Air won a bid to provide its Airbus H125 EMS aircraft for a pilot project called "Sanjeevani" (translation: "immortality") that was organized by the Uttarakhand state government and India’s civil aviation ministry. According to the company’s director Sandeep Saraf, the state is well placed to lead the nationwide initiative because it already has 28 helipads, including seven located along highways.
The H125 will be used exclusively by the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), which became famous after a visit by The Beatles at the height of the group’s fame in 1968. It will be based at the hospital, ready to be dispatched quickly across a 150-km (94-mile) radius.
India civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said his agency is working with the country’s roads, transport, and health departments to coordinate the expansion of EMS services. “We can evacuate accident victims from highways directly to hospitals,” he explained.
Based on the lessons learned from the pilot project in Uttarakhand, a similar operating model will be implemented in other Indian states. The federal government’s priority is to save more lives on the national highways, which saw 415,000 road accidents in 2021.
Roads and transport minister Nitin Gadkari recently confirmed the government is planning to set up helipads and drone landing facilities on national highways in around 600 locations. Request for proposals will be issued to construct this network of helipads, with the government indicating its intention to fast-track decision-making across multiple agencies—also including its finance, environment, commerce, and legal—to avoid past practice in which a single agency can delay progress by procrastinating over approvals.
According to Vishok Mansingh, CEO of aircraft leasing group Vman Aero, the program will attract the participation of helicopter operators with the promise of a one-year contract with a minimum utilization per vehicle of 45 hours per month. There are around 231 civil helicopters in India, which is not a large number given the vast size of the country; in April, India overtook China to claim the world’s largest population with more than 1.4 billion people.
The country has almost 2,000 highway construction projects underway, expanding existing roads and adding new ones over a total distance of 55,561 km. Mansingh told AIN that bids for further EMS contracts in other states could be opened in 2024 and predicted this process could result in 500 more helicopters being deployed across India within the next decade.
“We expect more single-engine helicopters will come in as they are more versatile and maneuverable, can fly at high altitudes, and are inexpensive to run,” he commented. In his view, twin-engine rotorcraft in India will largely be used for executive and VIP transportation and for special operations.