Pvt airlines lure away DGCA staff

The last big manpower expansion in the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the country’s aviation regulator, happened way back in 1991. That was when Air India and Indian Airlines were the only two domestic airlines in operation. Today, while the airline industry has grown manifold — there are 12 scheduled domestic airlines, more than 600 aircraft and 3,000 pilots — the DGCA is in a dismal state: only 260 officials are managing the show across the country.
The staff shortage at DGCA is so severe that while its headquarters in Delhi and the Mumbai centre are somehow managing, its branch offices at Guwahati, Kanpur and Patiala have shut down.
“At centres like Thiruvananthapuram, Bhopal and Patna, one officer is doing the job of three persons. One air safety officer in Kolkata investigates all accidents for the whole of East and Northeast India,” said a senior DGCA official. Worse, there is no DGCA presence in Gujarat and Rajasthan at all, the source said.
As a result, 24 technically qualified officers investigate more than 600 minor incidents and accidents every year. While the number of air misses, small incidents and serious accidents is on the rise, there are not enough people to investigate the cases.
Attrition has hit the DGCA hard as its technical staff is in high demand at domestic and international airlines. According to sources, about 40 senior officials have left in the last year and more resignations are in the pipeline.
The airworthiness directorate is the hardest hit. There are 122 senior officers in this department while close to 200 are required. “Many officials have joined private airlines. An official earning Rs 30,000 here gets a salary of more than Rs 1 lakh in the private sector, why wouldn’t they leave?” the official said.
04/07/08 Sidhartha Roy/Hindustan Times

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Jul 2008