DGCA faces heat from US on safety

New Delhi: The ugly truth about Indian aviation — failure to strengthen regulatory mechanism and ensure flight safety as air traffic grew manyfold in the past few years — could soon become an international embarrassment.
The government’s attempts to delay USA’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) notice to reassess the precarious staff strength at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) do not seem to be bearing fruit. This notice was served on January 7 and as per FAA rules, action has to initiated within 45 days. Thus, FAA could begin reassessment by February 22, which may lead to the downgrading of India from current level one to the lower third world levels.
‘‘Diplomatic efforts are still on to delay the reassessment as downgrading would mean, apart from serious loss of face, no new flights by Indian carriers to the US. But chances of the reassessment happening by February 22 are very high,’’ say highly placed sources.
Now, a panic-stricken aviation ministry is making some last-ditch attempts to show it is trying to strengthen DGCA and prove it can regulate the country’s growing traffic to the visiting FAA team.
28/01/09 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Foreign Jan 2009, Safety Jan 2009