A Parliamentary Standing Committee has recommended granting full financial and administrative autonomy to aviation safety regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), saying that the lack of autonomy is the “single greatest impediment” to the regulator’s ability to fulfil its mandate effectively. In its report on ‘Overall Review of Safety in the Civil Aviation Sector’, the Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture also highlighted that the DGCA is grappling with a “profound and persistent” shortage of technical and regulatory personnel, and said that the staff shortage is “an existential threat” to the integrity of India’s aviation safety system. The panel, which is headed by Rajya Sabha member and JD(U) leader Sanjay Kumar Jha, recommended a time-bound plan to grant autonomy to the DGCA.
Among other issues, the panel’s report also flagged the shortage of air traffic controllers (ATCOs), and fatigue among the controllers. It termed the ATCO staffing shortage as an “active and ongoing threat to the safety of the flying public”. It also criticised the Airports Authority of India (AAI), which handles the civilian air traffic control function in India, for not adhering to duty time limitations for ATCOs. As an immediate recommendation, the panel called for the development of a national Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) for ATCOs, along with a comprehensive staffing audit.
The report follows a meeting of the standing committee in July, which came a few weeks after the June 12 crash of Air India flight AI 171, in which 260 persons perished. The report did not mention the accident — the worst aviation disaster involving an Indian airline in four decades.
“The report recommends a time-bound plan to grant the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) full administrative and financial autonomy. This is imperative to address critical technical staff shortages caused by an ineffective recruitment model, a problem highlighted by past expert committees but never resolved. Autonomy is essential for the regulator to attract talent, set industry-commensurate salaries, and effectively enforce compliance in a rapidly expanding sector. The Ministry’s current stance is that direct recruitment by DGCA is not under consideration,” the report said.
The report noted that of the total sanctioned strength of 1,063 posts at the DGCA, only 553 are currently filled, adding that this represents a “staggering shortfall” of nearly 50 per cent of the required manpower. “This deficit is not a mere administrative statistic; it is a critical vulnerability that exists at the very heart of India’s safety oversight system, occurring precisely at a time when the sector’s unprecedented growth demands more, not less, regulatory vigilance and capacity. While the Ministry has expressed an intention to increase the staffing level to approximately 850 within the next six months, the current gap remains a matter of grave concern,” the report said.
While recommending the fatigue risk management system for ATCOs along with a comprehensive staffing audit, the report said: “This is to end the long-standing and high-risk practice of seeking exemptions from mandatory duty-time limitations. The current mismatch between recruitment and training capacity, coupled with operational overload, poses a direct and ongoing threat to airspace safety”. It added that the Airports Authority of India (AAI), which handles the civilian air traffic control function in India, has acknowledged increasing workload on controllers, while stating that over 1,600 ATCO posts have been created recently.
“The evidence points to a deeply troubling practice within India’s air traffic management system: the normalisation of deviance. The system is knowingly and consistently operating outside its own mandated safety limits (WDTL) through the routine use of exemptions. This is a classic organisational failure, where a known and significant risk—controller fatigue—is accepted as a normal part of operations due to persistent operational and resource pressures,” the report noted, adding that reliance on exemptions has created a fragile system where the safety of the entire airspace depends “not on robust, systemic safeguards, but on the over-stretched cognitive endurance of a few hundred individuals”.
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Other recommendations by the standing committee include mandating a detailed root-cause analysis for every runway incursion and other recurring high-risk events, and establishing focused remedial programmes. “This is necessary because key safety targets for events like runway incursions are consistently being exceeded, indicating that the current incident review process is failing to translate lessons learned into effective operational changes. Specific data on bird strikes and engine failures underscores the need for effective remedial measures despite existing systematic oversight,” the report said.
Given the spate of helicopter accidents in hilly areas in recent months, the panel also called for a uniform national regulatory framework for all state-operated helicopter services, along with mandatory terrain-specific pilot training.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
