New aviation regulator gets nod

The DGCA would be replaced with a financially independent Civil Aviation Authority

In what might help India regain its higher safety ranking from the US’ Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Union cabinet on Wednesday approved amendments to the Bill for replacing the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) with a financially autonomous Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

A senior official in the ministry said on Thursday, “The standing committee (of Parliament) on transport had recommended certain amendments to the CAA Bill. Some of these were approved by the cabinet yesterday. The Bill would now be tabled in Parliament. The CAA would be financially independent and, to a large extent, help address the issues raised about India’s safety oversight mechanism by the FAA.”

The amendments as approved include appointing a part-time chairperson in the proposed authority. The role would be supervisory; he would preside over board meetings but operational matters would be dealt by the chief executive. Earlier, the Bill had said the chairperson would be appointed for a fixed term of five years. In its amended version, the CAA is also proposed to levy more stringent penalties, at five times the initial specified amount, for rule violations. The amended Bill further allows for creation of posts in the proposed body, with prior approval of the government.

The CAA would be financially independent and be able to recruit flight operation inspectors (FOIs) at market rates. The FAA, in audits conducted in September and then in December 2013, expressed severe concerns over the lack of full-time FOIs in the DGCA and had, on January 31, downgraded India to category-II of safety rankings.

The downgrade, which clubs India with countries such as Zimbabwe and Indonesia in this regard, means Indian carriers would not be able to increase flights to the US and additional checks would be imposed on the existing flights of Air India and Jet Airways when they land in the US. It would also impact code-share arrangements between Indian airlines and their American counterparts.

The DGCA has been trying to hasten processes to meet the FAA requirements. The government has already approved the creation of 75 posts in the DGCA to carry out safety inspections on airlines and private charter companies. It has been decided to pay salaries to the new recruits at market-determined rates. Till now, DGCA did not have any regular FOIs. So pilots and commanders were seconded from scheduled airlines to do these. Such people were paid by their respective airlines, not by DGCA. Due to this, there were possibilities of a conflict of interest, a factor noted by FAA. The DGCA had not been able to hire full-time FOIs due to its inability to pay them market-linked salaries.

An official at DGCA said, “We will be taking out advertisements and will complete the recruitment within a month. A regulation is also in place now to train our personnel in new types of aircraft, another unresolved area of concern. We will meet all requirements by the end of next month and approach the FAA for a fresh audit.”

 

Besides, shortage of technical staff the FAA has also raised questions related to the training of employees on all kinds of aircraft available in the country. “Our employees are trained on all types of aircraft operated by our scheduled commercial airline but the non-scheduled operators (NSOPs) have various kinds of aircraft, which our employees were not trained in,” said another official in DGCA. To address the issues, the DGCA has put in place a regulation making it mandatory for NSOPs to train two FOIs at DGCA each time they bring in a new kind of aircraft.