ATC short of 500 staffers

New Delhi: Booming air traffic may be touted by UPA as one of its biggest achievements in the past five years. But just scraping the surface shows how vital backup infrastructure of air traffic control and Directorate General of Civil Aviation hasn’t kept pace with the growing traffic.
While the US Federal Aviation Administration’s sword is hanging over DGCA as the government forgot to strengthen DGCA to the level of a real regulator, Monday’s incident shows the weakness in ATC system. India requires 2,100 ATCs but makes do with only 1,650, including 173 trainees — a shortage of nearly 500 officials.
The failure of the ministry to hive off ATC from Airports Authority of India (AAI) has made it difficult to retain its controllers. Last year, for instance, AAI gave appointment letters to 300 controllers but only 230 joined.
The reason: a person needs to be an engineering graduate (not from mechanical or civil side) to become an ATC. The job has huge responsibilities and a pay that’s not commensurate with the task at hand, a reason why many youngsters prefer safer jobs in other industries. ‘‘As part of AAI, the pay of ATCs has to be comparable to that of other PSU employees. Had ATC been hived off as a separate corporation as planned, the pay structure could have been different,’’ said sources.
The sanctioned strength for the country is 2,100, a figure that was set about 10 years back. Experts say that if the situation is reassessed, the country needs about 4,300 people. ‘‘ATCs in Delhi were doing double shifts a while back to make up for the shortage of staff. The international rule is that an ATC should handle a maximum of 10 flights at a time while in Delhi an ATC handles as many as 30 flights during peak hours,’’ said sources.
The attrition rate in the industry is extremely high.
10/02/09 Saurabh Sinha & Neha Lalchandani/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Feb 2009, Safety Feb 2009