Dakota VT-AUM lying at the Birlagram Airport at Nagda, Ujjain had been auctioned off to pay for the banktrupcy of the Birla Company that owned it. The aircraft thankfully is not going to be scrapped, but rather allocated for preservation with a technical training college.
Dakota VT-AUM lying at the Birlagram Airport at Nagda, Ujjain had been auctioned off to pay for the banktrupcy of the Birla Company that owned it. The aircraft thankfully is not going to be scrapped, but rather allocated for preservation with a technical training college in Gulbarga.
The story from Daily Mail in January 2015 is reproduced below:
Birlas’ Dakota aircraft sold to pay BCI staff salaries
A 1946 Dakota aircraft, owned by B.K. Birla Group, and extensively used by G.D. Birla and his family members, is being dismantled in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain.
The unused aircraft had gone under the hammer in July 2013.
The auction was held following the instructions of the Madhya Pradesh High Court to disburse the pending salary of former employees of Bharat Commerce & Industry (BCI). The BCI, which falls under the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs, was shut down in 2000.
Rajesh Sharma, general manager, Grasim Industries, Nagda in Ujjain district of the state, told mediapersons: “The parts of the plane are being dismantled by engineers of Dakota itself. Its parts will be taken to Gulbarga.”
The bid for the aircraft was reportedly bagged by a West Bengal-based firm. This week, two years after the bidding, a team of engineers from Dakota started dismantling the plane that is standing on the Nagda airstrip once used by the Birla Group.
According to old timers, the Dakota aircraft took its last sortie from Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1990. In all likelihood, the parts of the rare aircraft will be transported to the Kesoram Cement plant in Gulbarga district of Karnataka where it might find a home.
