This school dropout builds a helicopter to help his remote, flood-stricken village in Assam

Siwakoti Sharma is a class 3 dropout who repairs cars for a living. He hails from Shyamjuli village, Assam, which is almost always flooded-affected. Vehicles struggle to reach this village, 450km northeast of the principal city of Guwahati. This is the reason why Siwakoti built a helicopter that he says can carry two people 30-50ft above the ground.

Siwakoti, in spite of being hard-pressed for money, sold his land and invested whatever little savings he had in his dream. He spent more than Rs 15 lakh to design the helicopter, Pawan Putra. Siwakoti built the helicopter with metal sheets, car seats and two SUV engines. An innovative fix, he worked on the helicopter primarily to give his backward area a faster mode of transport, reports Hindustan Times.

Victor Carpenter, the District Commissioner said, “We want to encourage a person who has conquered adversities to make a helicopter without any degree. But we want to go by the rules first,” reports Hindustan Times. Though the DC wants to encourage inventions such as these, since Sharma lacks a degree in aviation, his appeal will be forwarded to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to arrange a trial run of the helicopter. Carpenter said the district administration would write to the civil aviation regulator DGCA and others who deal with such cases. “We are exploring the possibility of at least facilitating a trial for the chopper that Sharma has built,” reports IndiaTimes.

Siwakoti said local officials and officers from an army camp nearby have promised to witness the trial of his helicopter once he gets permission.“I did run the engines once. The rotor was forcing the helicopter up, but I stopped the engines in order to not violate any rules.”

The local residents of Siwakoti’s village have also written to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give his nod of approval.

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