IISDA to teach diving to IAF officers

Mumbai: The Indian Institute of Scuba Diving and Aquatic Sports (IISDA) at Tarkarli in the Konkan region of the state will train 235 officers of the Indian Air Force (IAF), said managing director of Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC), Abhimanyu Kale, on Saturday.

Mr Kale said that they had trained 1,000 people, including scientists and tourists from the USA, China, Europe and Australia.

Mr Kale said that this was a matter of pride for the state as the IISDA will be training Air Force officers for scuba diving.

Addressing a press conference at Mantralaya Sat-urday, Mr Kale said that the IISDA was an institute that had maintained its standards at the international level. After testing various training centres across the entire nat-ion, this institution from the state had been selected for imparting the training, he added.

Mr Kale also said that because of good infrastructure, capability and expert trainers, the Air Force had selected the IISDA for the scuba diving  training.

The Air Force officers are trained as a routine part of their work. A total of 235 officers will be imparted training from January 3 to March 29, in 20 different teams.

Mr Kale said that coastal and maritime tourism was a big part of the tourism industry. Mr Kale added that efforts were on by the MTDC to enhance the coastal area of the state.

In a query over how an amateur tourist can experience scuba driving, the chief instructor and general manager of IISDA, Dr Sarang Kulkarni said that a 60 minutes class room session will be given as a basic training lecture before scuba diving into 25 feet deep pool.