Tribal girl’s dream to fly turns real

For many of the aspiring aviators, there would be many obstacles to overcome. This 27 year old woman – Anupriya Lakra who is from Malkangiri District, Odisha had many hurdles when she was in pursuit of her ambition to be an aviator. She has jumped over them all and now en route to meet the sky as Odisha’s First Female Pilot from Tribal Community.

Anupriya is the daughter of Mainiyas Lakra, a Police Constable and Jimaj Yashmin in Malkangiri which is a Naxal and Maoist infested district in Odisha. In 2012, she joined in a government run Engineering College in Bhubaneswar. After a few months, she found that her heart is in aviation. She got admitted in Government Aviation Training Institute, Bhubaneswar. Now she is all set to become a co-pilot in a leading Indian airline. Yashmin said that it was not an easy task for Anupriya as there were in the middle of Naxal attacks and occupations. She mentioned that many have said that it would not be possible for Anupriya to become a pilot.

For a tribal woman to become a pilot is something phenomenal and Anupriya, if she wanted to stick to her comfort zones, could have just remained pursuing her college and gone for a job that she could get with her education. But she has now proved that she is harder than her hardships and now has become a role-model for the girls in her hometown.